


Premonitions

by shortstakk79



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-11
Updated: 2015-06-28
Packaged: 2018-04-03 21:52:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 34,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4116186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shortstakk79/pseuds/shortstakk79
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aaron keeps having the weirdest reoccurring dream....and it's about to come true.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

He woke up with a start, breathing hard, and sweat rolling down his face. He was a little disoriented. The dream had been so real. Again. 

This was the third time this week alone that he had had that same dream; and every time he had it the details were so vivid…he always woke up feeling wonky. He always felt a little disoriented after; it was almost like whatever was happening in the dream was real life and waking up in his own bed, in his own apartment was the part that was make believe. 

All he could ever remember about the dream was the woman darting out in front of his car from God knows where. In the dream he’s travelling down the road, it’s night time, it’s been raining…he’s going only a couple miles over the posted speed limit---no more than five miles over. He had been on the phone with his former sister-in-law confirming that his son would be staying at her house over the week-end; his son missed his cousins, it would give him a bit of time to catch up and play. Besides, if they were to catch a case over the next couple of days it would be insanely convenient for the boy to already be at the woman’s house. After receiving the confirmation, he hung up his cell phone. That’s when it happened. The woman darted out into the road surprising the man so badly. He had plenty of time to stop, but in his shock he had put on brakes rather suddenly nonetheless. The woman would look up to the windshield of the car and then…..

That’s when he would wake up; cold sweats, breathing hard, unable to get his bearings, trying to find his clock to see how long he had before it would go off signaling that it was time to go catch another psychopath. He could remember everything so vividly, up to the point that the woman had looked up at him in his car. Beyond that, he had no recollections; he couldn’t tell you what the woman looked like if you held a gun to his head. 

As it was, he looked at the clock; he only had about 45 minutes before it would be going off. He figured he might as well get up and get ready for work; going back to sleep right now would be ridiculous, his sleep would just get interrupted a second time, and he would be cranky all day at work. 

One thing was for sure, he would be glad when these damned dreams would stop waking him up in the wee hours of the morning.

Or so he thought.


	2. Premonitions: Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hotch is getting run down without the proper amount of sleep; some of the others are starting to notice. Rossi makes him take the day off work and takes him back to his house to try to get some rest.

Friday morning Hotch walked into the office feeling worn out. He hadn’t gotten a decent night’s sleep in days, if not weeks. As he made his way to the small set of steps that lead to the landing that housed his office, he passed Morgan, not even seeming to notice the other man’s presence. Hotch seemed to be walking in a fog.

“Hotch…’ No response.

“Hotch!’ Hotch turned around to see Morgan standing there, brows knitted together a bit, a look of worry passing over his face.

“Morgan?”

“Are you alright? You seem kind of out of it.”

Hotch gave a tired smile, ‘Yeah, I’m alright, just have some things on my mind. Sorry.”

“It’s alright; I’m here if you want to talk.”

“Thanks, I’ve just got some thinking to do.”

What Hotch didn’t realize was that Rossi was in his own office, watching him from the window like a hawk. He had noticed his friend and colleague of the past few days not feeling like his normal self. When they were at the office, Rossi would catch Aaron sitting behind his desk; elbows on the desk, forehead resting in his hands, eyes slammed shut. And then when they were on cases the past couple of weeks, Aaron seemed distracted, and that was on a good day. 

As soon as Hotch entered his office and shut his door he sat at his desk, dropping his briefcase; sitting down he rested his head against the back of his chair. No sooner had his eyes closed than there was a knock at his office door.

Without even waiting for an invitation, Rossi walked through the door.

“So, are you gonna tell me what is wrong with you, or do I have to get Garcia?”

Aaron merely tilted his head in Rossi’s direction, cracking an eye open.

“Have pity on a man would you? I haven’t had a decent night’s sleep in days.”

“What’s going on Aaron? All you have to do is tell me, and I might leave you alone for a little while.”

Rossi had a rueful smile on his face.

“Yeah right, that’s not your style.”

Rossi only shrugged his shoulder as he sat in the chair across from Hotch’s desk.

“So….What is the problem Aaron?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I….”

“Let me be the judge of that.”

“The past couple of weeks I’ve been having the strangest dream. It’s always the same. In the dream, it’s raining. I’m driving down the road. I have been talking to Jessica on my cell about her keeping Jack over the  
weekend again. I am only on the phone for a matter of a few moments. Some short time after I hang up the call a woman darts out in front of my car from God knows where. I happen to see her soon enough that I can safely apply brakes, and yet I’m still so shocked that I apply them rather abruptly to begin with. When my car comes to a stop it’s only a couple tiny inches from the woman.”

“What does she look like? Do you remember anything about her at all?”

“No. I always wake up around the time that the car comes to a stop; that being the point when I could get a really good look at her face or anything else about her. All I can ever remember is her being in the road and being scared to death that I’m going to plow her over with my SUV. 

Otherwise all I know about the dream is….I have a sense that the woman is in trouble. I mean why else would a strange woman just run out in front of a moving vehicle if she wasn’t trying to get some help?  
Somehow I know she needs help and so far I’ve been able to do nothing for her. I wake up barely able to breathe, like I’ve been running track. I have cold sweats….and I know for a fact you’ve noticed my spotty  
performance lately. 

Dave, I feel like I’m running on fumes. This dream…something’s gotta give, I can’t keep going this way. I can barely think straight around here. One night I was fixing dinner for Jack and myself and I was so worn out I sat down at the dining room table and fell asleep. Jack had been in his room playing and he smelled the food burning and came to wake me up.”

Rossi saw just how tired his friend was beginning to look. 

“Look, Aaron, take the rest of the day off.”

“Dave, I don’t even know if I can drive home like this or not. I barely remember the drive to come here in the first place.”

“I can take you to my house, at least for the time being.”

“Who will run the….?”

“Don’t worry about that just now. Morgan can handle it for a few hours or days if that’s what is needed. But you have to get some rest before you just collapse. I’ll simply tell them that you have some issues with exhaustion and that I’m taking you home so I can help you get some rest. They don’t have to know anything that you don’t want them to know. You know you’re too tired to fight me.”  
Hotch could only nod his head. It was all true. He wasn’t sure that he had the mental capacity for a protracted argument or not. 

“Get your things together and meet me at the elevators in say, five minutes.”

With Hotch’s agreement, Rossi made his way to his office to pick up his own brief case and car keys and then he made his way into Morgan’s office to give him the lowdown about running the show for a couple hours, at least until he had time to call him with further instructions.

“Is Hotch ok?”

“He’ll be fine; he’s just a little worn down right now. He said something about not feeling to good, maybe just a bit under the weather.”

This wasn’t a total lie. Hotch had said that there was rain in the dream. So that qualified as bad weather. Perhaps that was stretching things a bit far to fit the truth, but until he and Hotch could figure this out further, this nugget would have to do for the time being.

“Ok, just let me know if he needs anything.”

“If who needs what?”

Garcia had just walked up to the door of Morgan’s office to drop off a couple of files.

Oh no, this isn’t good. Rossi almost cringed. Garcia would want to know who was having the problem, what the problem was, and would not stop until the problem had been obliterated. She loved her boys; Morgan  
the most out of them all, but she had a warm and fuzzy spot for each of the men in some form or fashion. 

“It’s nothing Garcia, just that Hotch isn’t feeling so well, and I’m going to take him to my place to see if he can get any rest for a few hours. I can call one of you a little bit later and tell you more about how he’s feeling.”

“I can make you both something to bring by for dinner…..”

“I don’t know…”

“Come on Super Dave….he’s the boss man. I gotta do something. Some take out or something. If you’re going to be taking care of him for a bit, the two of you will need something to eat, and someone to check on  
the both of you to make sure you haven’t strained each other’s last nerves.”

“She has a really good point there, Rossi.”

“Fine. Come by around six. Bring take out from that Vietnamese place he likes. Take my credit card; buy enough for the four of us. He likes the Pho Beef soup and if they have any, some of the Tarot Bubble Tea that  
they make. He’s always partial to that flavor.”

“Alright, Dave we’ll be there later.”

“Just watch over poor Hotch for me till we get there.”

Rossi smiled at Garcia. Poor Hotch was going to get enough mothering to choke a horse if he wasn’t careful. Garcia needed to have babies, so she would have an outlet for this sort of thing. Maybe after he got  
Aaron whipped back into shape, he’d recommend that Morgan do a little something about that.

He almost chuckled to himself as he made his way to the elevators. Hotch was so tired he was swaying on his feet as Rossi walked up next to him.

“Come on Aaron, we’ll get you home and get you some rest, you’ll be right as rain in no time.”

Hotch fell asleep on the ride over to Rossi’s place. “I hope he doesn’t think that I’m carrying him through the door.” Rossi thought smugly to himself as he pulled into his driveway, waiting for his garage door to  
open enough to pull on through.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~CM~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Meanwhile, across town on an old abandoned farm, a young woman sat tied to a chair. She was filthy. Her clothes were in tatters. She was for all intents and purposes, unable to speak. She had forgotten how long these people had been holding her. She only knew that she had seen them take the red haired woman that had been seated not more than 7ft from her into the other room and she hadn’t seen her again; and come to think of it the screams had stopped and it was eerily quiet. 

For days she had been praying and begging God to get her out of this. She wanted to scream and yell to make some noise, but her throat hurt. She knew that the last couple times they strangled her that they had gone nearly too far. She knew there would be some damage, maybe only bruising to her larynx, although she had no real idea of how bad it might be. But then again, it’s not like she could scream anyway, not with that gag they had the gag placed in her mouth and secured tightly around the back of her head. 

Although she had no clue how long they had been keeping her (time becomes irrelevant when you’re pretty sure you’re going to die in a place like this), she knew that the sun was about to set on yet another day.  
She couldn’t see out of the window directly, it was behind her. But she could see the shades and shadows on the wall and how they changed. Soon it would be dark. 

Using her eyes, the only part of her body that she could freely move, she looked to the sky again; her prayers were always the same. 

"Just please, God, let me live."


	3. Premonitions: Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arriving at Rossi's house. We get to see more about what is happening with our OC.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.” (Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore)

Morning broke over the old farm house where she was being held. The young woman raised her head and tried to work the kinks out of her neck, having slept with her chin resting against her chest. She hated to even think of how filthy she was; she hadn’t been able to bathe in days. She heard the door to one of the other rooms opening and closing. 

“Did we have a good night?” One of the captors came and grabbed her by the chin, making her look him in the eye. She jerked her face away from him the best way she could.

“And that is why you are still alive, you still amuse me. Remember that.”

‘Keeping me alive will be the worst mistake you will ever make’, She thought to herself. 

The man walked across the room, knocking on the door to yet another room, ‘Come on, we gotta get rid of her.”

Another man came out of the room, fastening the button on the front of his jeans and they made their way over to the door of the room that she had seen them take the red haired woman into. 

They were in there for a total of three minutes. When they came out they were each holding the end of a rug or blanket that had been rolled up; if it had not been for the silky strands of red hair that were sneaking out of one end, anybody would have thought that it was just a dirty rug and they were getting rid of it. She knew better. 

The first captor had gotten a third man and told him that he and their other friend should keep an eye on her until they got back from the place they were going to dump the woman in the bundle. 

“I’ll be back. Don’t worry your pretty little head, I would never leave you for long.” With that the asshole winked at her and left. 

The other two men that had been left behind took their posts. One was lounging on the sofa in the room, flipping channels, trying to see if there had been any further news coverage about the missing women. The fourth man was in the kitchen making breakfast for everybody, well, the men.

She must have made too much noise moving around in her seat; the man watching TV jumped up and flew over to her, waving the gun in her face.

“Don’t make the mistake thinking I won’t enjoy killing you when the time comes. I have always thought that Damian was making a mistake keeping you. Now sit there and shut up.”

***‘So, one of them is named Damian. Good to know’***, she was keeping everything she learned filed away as ammunition, should she ever get the chance to get out of here alive.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~CM~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
As soon as Rossi pulled up to his house Hotch had been sent to stay in one of the guest rooms. As soon as he sat on the edge of the bed his eyes seemed to slam shut. The bed was so comfortable and he was so tired; he just couldn’t help himself. He remained seated on the edge of the bed, eyes shut, still asleep when Rossi made his way up the stairs to go to his own room to change his clothes.   
Dave glanced into the guest room to see if Aaron was ok and saw him perched there, dozing. Walking into the room Dave managed to pull some of the covers back on the bed and then got Aaron’s suit jacket off of him. Next, Dave pushed Aaron into a reclining position against the pillows that were behind him, taking Aaron’s shoes off of him as he placed his feet on the bed; before leaving the room, Dave pulled the sheet and the comforter up over Aaron and went over and closed the drapes to block more light, allowing for more sleep.

After changing into a pair of jeans and an old T-shirt, Rossi went downstairs and began to go through some of the case files in his briefcase. It would be a few more hours before Morgan and Garcia came over with the take-out; he figured he would work on the case file for an hour or two and then maybe try working out a chapter on the next book he was writing, that should kill a few hours.

Before going into his office to work on his book, Rossi made himself a sandwich and grabbed a beer, turning on the news to catch up on the world for a hot second. Not much caught his eye outside of a news report about the body of a red head turning up on the bank of the Potomac. According to the news cast, there were scant few clues; the police could tell that the woman had been tortured to some degree before death, but they were currently trying to determine the actual cause of death. Other than that they weren’t revealing much else to the media; her identity, if they knew it at this time wasn’t being released until next of kin could be found and notified. 

Once Rossi had heard all the news update had to offer he snapped the TV off and made his way to the office carrying the remainder of his beer and promptly got out his notes on the latest chapter he had wanted to go over. 

He found himself drifting; he was thinking more about the woman found by the river than he was about his book. 

‘Great, now Aaron’s rubbing off on me, that’s all I need,’ Dave thought to himself. 

He couldn’t get comfortable at his desk if his life depended on it, so he moved to the leather sofa he had in the office, reclining a bit with his feet up on the table in front of him.

Dave must have dozed off, because the next thing he knew was that the door-bell was ringing. He put both feet back down on the ground and noticed he had dropped his notes onto his chest when he started dozing; he picked them up and placed them in a stack on his desk before going to answer the door.

Getting to the door and checking the peep-hole, he saw Derek and Pen.

“Come on in you two and keep it quiet. He’s been asleep since we came in this morning. Did you bring the food?”

“Of course we did, and here’s your card back.” Morgan had opened his wallet and removed Dave’s credit card.

“Where’s the boss man? I want to see him.”

“He’s upstairs sleeping, don’t go waking him up.”

“Stop stressin’, I just want to check on him. Which room?”

“Second one on the right, up the stairs.”

Garcia toddled out of the room on her sky high heels; Morgan shaking his head the entire time.

“You gave up quick old man.”

“I just didn’t want her getting cranked up and wake him up if I could avoid it. Speaking of her mothering streak….When are the two of you going to drop pretenses and just make us some damned babies already?   
I’m not getting any younger and I want more grandchildren. And I know that’s exactly your mother’s sentiment. So, what’s the problem? Malfunctioning equipment?”

“You must be crazy. It just so happens that I am in top notch working order. But you know that Pen and I are just friends. Everybody knows that.”

“No, let me correct you my dear boy. Everybody knows the two of you are on the verge of ripping each other’s clothes off. The two of you are the only ones buying into the ‘We’re just friends’ crap. Snap out of it   
Skippy, you’re not fooling anybody. Cut to the chase and make me some more grandbabies; sooner rather than later.”

Morgan could only grin and shake his head.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~CM~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Garcia had made her way to the door of the room where Rossi had said that Hotch would be. She quietly opened the door to the room. Thanks to Rossi closing the drapes it was actually pretty dark in there, she could just make out the form of her boss; he was curled on his side, with his back to the door. Pen couldn’t be sure that he was actually asleep so she went around to the other side of the bed. He was laying there with his eyes open, just staring at the wall.

“Have you been to sleep at all?” Garcia nearly whispered to Hotch.

“Maybe for an hour, two at most. I just can’t sleep.”

“What’s wrong?” Garcia pulled the chair that had been over near the window closer to the bed, sitting beside Aaron.

“Garcia….”

“Don’t give me that tone; you’re too tired for it to work. Besides, Derek is downstairs with Rossi, don’t make me go get him; I’m the lesser of two evils right now. And if you are a good boy and tell me what your   
problems is there might be some Vietnamese soup downstairs waiting on you.”

Hotch sighed heavily, knowing she was right. Garcia might be a little pushy sometimes, but she was the sweetest person he knew. Dealing with her would be ever so much easier than dealing with Morgan. 

“I’ve been having the weirdest dream for the past few weeks. At first it wasn’t that big of a deal. In the beginning it was just about me driving down a dark road with woods on either side, I had just hung up from a call on my cell. Over the past few weeks it has morphed. Lately it’s about the same thing, only now, as I get to a certain point on the road a woman leaps out in front of my car from the God only knows where, and it has been raining a bit, and its night. I never see the woman’s face. All I know is that I am able to stop my SUV mere inches from hitting her and that her head and shoulders barely come up high enough to see over the hood on my vehicle. I get out to help her, and before I can see any details about her face or anything else, I wake up. I am breathing heavily, I’m in a cold sweat, I’m disoriented…..and I can’t go back to sleep because my mind is racing with trying to figure out who the woman is and what’s wrong that she just darts out into traffic. You know how I get on these things.”

“I do, I do. So, listen to me please….”

“Yes?”

“Stop it! It’s a dream Hotch. You don’t even know if this woman actually exists, much less that she’s in danger. And you said yourself you haven’t seen her face or anything so how could you even begin to look for   
her in missing persons to find out. Just stop it.”

“I wish it were that simple. Don’t you think I’ve thought of that over the past few weeks? I’ve tried telling myself how silly this is, but I can’t make it stop.”

“I know. But I had to try. Come on down and have some of that soup; Rossi said it was your favorite. Maybe getting something on your stomach will make you feel a little better.”

“Yes mom.”

“How very droll. Come on boss man, up ya go.” 

Garcia helped Hotch up off of the bed, making a mental note to check through local missing persons records to see if she couldn’t accidently stumble upon Hotch’s mystery woman. It couldn’t hurt. If she could find   
the woman, it would get him back to sleeping properly. She hated to see Hotch all out of sorts…if he couldn’t hold it together then what hope was there for the rest of them?  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~CM~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
She wasn’t let down. Damian meant it when he said he wouldn’t be gone long, even though time was irrelevant to her now. According to the way the men talked it had only been about 30 minutes that Damian and the other guy, she thought his name was Joshua, had been gone. The red haired rug was not with them, so that meant that they’d be looking for a replacement soon. Until they found a new play thing, she was going to be a busy girl. 

‘Damn her, she couldn’t have lasted a little longer, really?’ she knew she was wrong to have those thoughts. As much as she hated being strapped down in this chair, it was definitely better than the alternative. She had yet to have breakfast today; but it hardly mattered, she didn’t get fed every day, that’s just how things were.

Walking closer to her on his way to his room, Damian stopped and untied her wrists and feet, pulling her out of the chair.

“I am going to be otherwise occupied for a while, try not to do anything stupid until further notice.” He commanded the others. Joshua and the other two men simply nodded their agreement before the door to   
Damian’s room shut behind him. 

He had tossed her down onto the mattress as he spun her into the room, following soon after. 

She had to prepare to play the game again; fight enough to keep him interested….it’s all that kept you alive….but pretend to be afraid of him enough that you will ultimately do as he pleases….you don’t want to resist to the point that he gets angry and snaps. Perhaps if he was feeling generous today not only would he let her eat something, but bathe as well….living on that assumption she knew there would be time to   
vomit later. 

That was the last real thought that she had as she heard him unzipping his pants and lowered himself onto her.


	4. Premonitions: Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally dreams become reality. I will be naming the OC eventually. When I originally wrote the story I hadn't yet picked what name I wanted her to have at this point. But I think it worked to keep her anonymous for a while as it was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “What do we say to the Lord of Death?"  
> "Not today.” (George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones)

Damian rolled off of her three hours ago, but she dared not move. If he felt the mattress shift even the slightest, he’d wake up; waking Damian up was a bad move. She had to get up and use the bathroom so freaking bad, but she didn’t dare move. He had his arm draped around her, so he would know if she even farted. Damn the luck, she thought to herself. Besides, even if she made it as far as standing up her body would make her pay for the decision; she ached everywhere. Damian was not a gentle man in any sense of the word. She kept having to remind herself to be patient as long as possible. Eventually she would be allowed to shower; however brief that might be, she was always grateful for those few moments. Her left side was aching; she supposed that’s what she got for trying to pull herself away from Damian earlier…..He told her that it forced him to beat her when he didn’t really want to. So now, more of his BS was her fault. These moments that she was trapped on this hideous mattress were not wasted. She constantly plotted the best way to escape should the opportunity present itself. It went without saying that all of her plans were contingent on some slight oversight by these….men.  
She had to be patient, they would fuck up, and then she would have her chance.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~CM~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Hotch sat on the sofa in Rossi’s living room eating his Pho Beef soup quietly, deep in thought. Morgan and Garcia were sitting on the love seat on the other side of the coffee table from him, trying not to just blatantly stare, but watching him intermittently. Rossi had no compunction; he was not above a good old fashioned stare-down. 

A dozen bites later, he finally looked up as if sensing three pairs of eyes on him.

“What?” He asked wiping at his mouth with the napkin. 

“Aaron, you have to stop thinking about this dream woman. It’s not healthy.”

“I know, and I really do try. But it was so damned real, you have no idea. I keep trying to think of how I would actually act if she was to cross my path….how I would help her. And that’s not even the bit that keeps  
me awake.”

“What is it then?”

“Trying to figure out how to see her face….to figure out who she might be. I don’t care about anything else much outside of the fact that I have to do something to help her, to save her. But her identity is the thing that keeps me awake.”

With that Hotch kept eating, putting a stop to the questions for the time being. For some reason the soup was extremely good this time, ever so much more than usual. Perhaps it had to do with the fact that it was acting as a shield today as well.

After everyone had finished eating, they decided to watch some old movie; it was ‘Topper’ with Cary Grant from 1937. Garcia was resting her head against Derek’s chest as they curled up on the love seat; they were passing Twizzlers between themselves.

“Apt title for that piece I think,’ Rossi thought to himself as he propped his old dogs on the footstool in front of him. 

Hotch couldn’t concentrated on the film. He’d seen it enough times before in his youth to know the script nearly by heart; he could have cared less about seeing it again. It was a great movie, that wasn’t the problem. 

The others wanted him to forget this unknown woman, but it wasn’t that easy….not when images of her were what woke him up every time he shut his eyes. How was he supposed to forget that kind of thing?  
Besides he felt like if he kept trying to go back over his dream, he might remember a detail he had missed before. But then, he began to think….  
His friends were right. He didn’t even know if this was a real woman and if she was really in trouble. It was apparent that if this was something real, that the events hadn’t even happened yet. And with that being said, it’s not like Hotch could do anything to prevent it. So he couldn’t understand why he was spazzing out about this ‘dream’ woman. But he just couldn’t stand to leave any stone unturned if he could help it. He couldn’t even get Garcia to check missing persons reports to narrow down who this might be since he had never really been able to see any physical attributes of this woman. For all intents and purposes he had never even seen enough of her physically to even know that this was a woman he was dreaming of; it was just a feeling he had.

The harder he thought about this he began to doze off on Dave’s sofa. Thirty minutes later, Rossi looked over and Hotch was out cold. Dave let him sleep since he was having so much trouble with it lately. Even  
Garcia had dozed quietly, resting her head against Derek’s chest. 

“I better be getting grandchildren soon, I’m not getting any younger…” Dave shook his head and smiled; Derek never so much as glanced Dave’s way. Another 15 minutes later, and Derek had fallen asleep as well, his left arm wrapped snuggly around Penelope. 

Dave stood up and grabbed a blanket off of the back of the love seat and draped it over the couple; then, he walked over to the sofa and tossed another blanket over Hotch’s sleeping form. After he had seen to his friends, Dave walked into the kitchen to get a quick drink of water; he figured he’d head into his office and do a little work while the others were sleeping. Making his way back through the living room he shut the TV down and continued on his way to his little office.

After Rossi made his way into his office, Hotch cracked his eye open and scanned the room. Morgan was holding onto Garcia, cuddling her close. He saw the door to Rossi’s office was shut almost completely, barely opened more than a crack. 

He flung the blanket off of himself and quietly rolled off of the sofa, getting to his feet. He checked to make sure he had his cell phone and then quietly made his way out of the front door. Hotch sincerely hoped he could get the SUV started without anyone hearing it. That’s all he needed; Morgan standing there, in front of the car, glaring at him, demanding the keys like he was eight years old. As he walked out of the house, Hotch noticed it had started raining slightly; it was a bit heavier than a sprinkle, but it wasn’t a deluge either. 

Hotch got the SUV started and began rolling out of the driveway. It was late on a Thursday night; he hoped that a short drive would calm his mind down a bit. He had to try it. 

About four miles up the road, his cell phone rang; it was Jessica, his former sister-in-law. 

“Hey Jess. Yeah I was gonna call you tomorrow, well later today, and ask if it was alright for him to stay over the weekend and I could just pick him up on Monday. It’s not likely we’ll get a case, but the week has been  
so quiet, I just don’t know what to expect…..Yeah, true. With school starting soon it will give him a few more days to spend with his cousins swimming and cutting up. I always try to be careful. I hope he’s good for you this weekend. Call me if you need a break from it all and I will come get him. I know you love him to death, but everybody needs some time off sometimes. I will owe you big time come Christmas. You have no idea. Alright, well you have a good night as well. I will come by sometime tomorrow and bring him some fresh clothes and check in to see how everyone is doing. See you later.”

Hotch had just hung up with Jessica, placing his cell phone in a pocket on the console between the seats when something dashed out into the middle of the road. Hotch had just enough time to apply the brakes without slamming them on thanks to the fact he hadn’t been going at the full speed limit. 

The SUV came to a stop quickly maybe three inches from the being in front of it. Hotch glanced out of the windshield. He couldn’t see any details about the person standing in front of his vehicle. Suddenly his breath became choppy. He knew exactly what was happening. This was his dream! Before he got out of the driver’s seat, he pinched himself….

He seemed to be wide awake. “Good lord, it’s actually happening!”

Putting the car in park, he slowly opened the door and stepped out. Making his way around to the front of the vehicle the person in the road came more into focus, the lighting didn’t seem quite as harsh; he could begin to make out features. His eyes were moving up from the feet. It was a woman, he could tell by the figure. He nearly gasped in surprise when he got to her face…..  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~CM~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Later that night, Damian finally left her alone on that filthy mattress. He and the boys had decided to go grab another woman. In the excitement over the idea of hunting, Damian didn’t bother restraining her, or locking her in the room. She had staid still, pretending to sleep as he got up and went into his room to get some fresh clothes. Silently, she began thanking God. Tonight was going to be the night. She nearly leapt from the mattress with joy at the idea of getting out of that damned place. But she had to be careful. She had to wait until they were gone; and even then she wasn’t 100% sure that all of them would go. 

Lying there she listened; Damian gave the order for one of the men to stay there and make sure she didn’t do something stupid. 

“No, but I will do something freaking genius.” She thought to herself quietly, although she really wanted to laugh or get excited over the idea of what she was about to do. But she had to remain calm. If she got too  
worked up over everything, it could all back fire and then she’d look like a fool. 

Once Damian and Joshua were gone with two of the other men, she rolled over, carefully, on the mattress. She sat up and looked around the room. She wasn’t sure where her clothes were, or how much would be  
left of them. She saw some clothes lying around that belonged to at least some of the men, if not all of them. 

She heard the TV click on; “Gary is always the dumbest of the bunch it seems. He’s going to sit there watching TV when he has a job to do. This wouldn’t be happening if they had left Joshua here. Thank you God for the small favors.” 

Quietly she began gathering the bits of clothes. There was a pair of jeans, a belt, a T-shirt, some socks and a pair of shoes. This room must have been their laundry basket. As disgusted with the idea of wearing their clothes as she might have been, she reasoned that IF she found somebody to help her she might need some proof, some way of getting DNA. She had watched enough crime shows on TV and known a few cops in her day on top of that; she knew that having DNA at their disposal sometimes made all the difference. She put on the pants, and the belt….sashing that as tight as she could to keep the pants on. She pulled the T-shirt on over her head and pulled her long hair out of the back of it. Next, she crammed the socks into each pocket. Lastly, she tied the shoestrings from either shoe together in a not and pulled on them to make sure it was tight enough to hold. 

She looked around to see if she could make it through the window. Getting up off of the mattress she looked outside; it was dark, she had no idea just how far down the ground was. And besides, the bottom  
window sill was just far enough off of the ground that she would have one hell of a time crawling out of it and she highly doubted it would be a good idea to ask Gary to come and give her a boost. 

“Fabulous. All dressed up and nowhere to go!” she snidely thought. 

Just then the doorbell rang.

“Who the hell is coming here this time of night?” She couldn’t help but think to herself, nearly out loud. Nobody had ever come by ringing the doorbell at any time before. 

“Coming,’ Gary shouted as he got up off of the couch to go to the door. 

Upon opening the door it became apparent that it was some bible beater, maybe a Jehovah’s Witness. They wanted to know what church this fine young man belonged to. They began to quiz him on his scriptures.  
Gary had tried to be nice about them going away, but they kept asking him questions. And Gary, slow, special Gary, didn’t want to appear rude to people doing God’s work…..especially considering what he and his friends had been doing. He figured he’d put up with it if this would help make God look the other way.

She really didn’t hear the whole conversation. About the third question out of the one man’s mouth she slung the shoes across her neck and bolted off of the mattress and made her way out of the room towards the back door. She had to leave the door open to allow the light from the house to give her something to see by as far as it could reach; otherwise she would have shut it behind her to give herself a few extra seconds in the long run….although she needn’t worry. She had the forethought to leave the window of her room open to throw Gary off at least to the point he would waste time calling the others. Nothing was guaranteed, but the others were likely 10 or 15 miles away; they didn’t hunt too close to home. It would take them the better part of 30 minutes at least to get back. In that time, Gary could only search so much of an area on his own…..that’s if he even bothered to call. He might get so afraid of Damian and Joshua that he would run away himself. 

These were all things that she thought about as she ran like hell in any direction away from the building. She came to a barn that was 50 yards away and she ran inside. Flicking on the lights she rummaged around looking for anything she might be able to use. She grabbed a huge emergency flashlight, testing it. Thankfully, it seemed to be working properly. Next, she grabbed a tire iron, some kind of jacked up bug spray, a lighter and a book of matches. There was some length of rope that she grabbed as an afterthought, not sure what she might use it for, but she couldn’t be too careful. 

With that she shut the light in the barn off and moved around behind it, turning the flashlight on the dimmest setting that she could use and still be able to see. 

There were woods in front of her. “Awesome, they brought me out to the boonies.” 

With no other choice she asked God to bless the bible beater at the door for their timing and began to move into the woods. She walked carefully, barefooted, through the woods. Sticks and rocks were digging into her feet. But she had no choice. The shoes were too big for her feet and would just hold her back. She walked deeper and deeper into the woods; using the flashlight on a slightly higher setting she shined it through the trees, and couldn’t make out any landmarks, so she must be into them good. 

Not knowing how far or how long she had actually walked, she had to sit down just for a minute. She hurt from that last beating. That alone was bad enough; but she was also quite hungry and cold, so very cold. 

And it was starting to rain. 

“My night keeps getting better.” She thought to herself as she sat down on a fallen log to catch her breath for a moment. After sitting there for what had to be about five minutes, she got back to her feet and continued on her way. She walked forever it seemed like, but without a watch she had no way of knowing for sure how long it was. She began trying to look for a way out of these woods. She felt as though she had been in them long enough. But she was getting really cold and wet. She’d be surprised if she didn’t die of pneumonia out here. Looking around she saw what looked like some old barn or hunting cabin that was left over from the war of 1812…..beggars couldn’t be choosers. She went inside; at least it would offer her some dry patch from the rain. She sat down all of her supplies. 

Most people would question the bug spray. This time of year, closing in on winter, there were few bugs to worry about. But if the guys had caught up to her in some way, she could use the bug spray in conjunction with the lighter as a flame thrower; at least that’s how she’d worked it out in her head. The matches she brought, just because you never knew when a good book of matches would come in handy……

Jackpot; there was some old wood piled up in a corner, mostly busted 2x4s from some long forgotten building project. She walked over and knocked out a board from the wall of the barn, opening a hole she did the same to the other side of the barn. Between those two holes and the open doorway, there should be plenty of ventilation for the time being. She grabbed a couple of the broken pieces of the 2x4s and piled them up in the middle of the room, adding some of the leaves and straw that happened to be left in here from Mother Nature doing her thing. With the matches she carefully lit a fire. She had to get warm and dry off at least a little. She was shaking with cold. With her fire lit, she began to really look around the place a little more. There was a tarp; it was an old dingy dark sort of army green. It would help her blend into her surroundings a little more if she needed it, and if nothing else she could use it as a blanket if she could find nothing else. Luckily, she was able to find an old lock box of sorts that was left behind, rummaging through that she found an actual blanket. God only knows how dirty it was, but she was filthy herself right this moment. She hadn’t be allowed to bathe in days, she felt disgusting. And then there was this little field trip through the woods…..she couldn’t wait to get back to civilization again. Taking the blanket over to the fire she had built she laid it out flat on the floor. Next, she folded the tarp up as much as she could, she was making a pillow. After this was done, she went over and grabbed eight more pieces of the wood. Putting two of them on the fire, she decided to try to really rest; she needed to take some weight off of her ribs, they were screaming at her, especially on her left side. She lay on her right side watching the fire burning, trying to lay far enough away that she didn’t get too much heat on her face, but had enough to keep her warm. Half of the blanket remained on the floor under her and she wrapped the other half around herself to cover up with.

She must have dozed off, because when she woke up the fire was getting awful low. As much as it was enticing to stay there, she couldn’t; there was still time for them to find her. She sat up, checking herself over. 

She wasn’t completely dried out, but it would have to do. She had to get moving again. She decided to try to find a road or something that might eventually lead her to civilization.

She rolled the bug spray in the blanket and rolled the blanket in the tarp to try to keep it dry; then she picked up the lighter and the matches and put them in her pockets. Next she got the crow bar, and slid it into the rolled up tarp and blanket. 

She wasn’t sure how long she had walked, but she could hear the sound of a car on pavement. Unrolling the tarp she made her way close to the street and hunkered down, drawing the tarp over her. With its dark coloring it would keep her from being seen right away as well as keeping her as dry as possible. 

Sure enough, a car drove past her location, going approximately the speed limit. She held off on flagging them down. She needed to get herself together a second. Now all that she needed to do was wait for another car. Although the ground was cold and wet, she relaxed onto it for a few minutes, trying to take some pressure off of her ribs again. 

She might have been lying there for 20 minutes, time had become irrelevant to her, but she heard the sound of an approaching vehicle. She had to jump out and flag it down; it might be the last car on this road at this time of night period. Even if it was Damian and the others coming for her, she had to take that chance….better to die trying, breathing free air than to die on that awful mattress under Damian.

Saying one last prayer for this to work, she closed her eyes, dropped her supplies, and stepped out into the road…..

The car was closer than she had initially thought. It was dark and rainy out, there was a sharp curve beyond where she had been; she couldn’t tell for sure how close the vehicle was, but it was close enough to hear, that’s all that had mattered. Now she was left with the feeling that perhaps she should have done some better math than she had. The car was coming on pretty fast. 

Should I move? NO! If I move, they may not see me, and then I’m back to square one. If they hit me, they hit me….at least then someone will know that I am here. 

She stood there, in the middle of the road, her eyes squinting in the brightness of the headlights, waiting….

She knew the second that the driver saw her; she heard the brakes. The car came to a complete stop maybe three inches, at the most, from her. ‘Thank You God!’ She was ecstatic that they had stopped. 

It was another moment or two before the driver exited the vehicle. At this time she began to worry about things. She hadn’t really thought things through. She had been held by Damian and the others for….what was the date?.....she couldn’t remember. What if this person was just like them? Worse, what if it was one of them? Her heart began to beat hard in her chest. She couldn’t hear anything but the blood rushing through her ears. She was beginning to feel a little light headed. After being locked away for so long the fresh air was doing funny things to her head….

The driver’s side door opened and a man got out. She slammed her eyes shut for a second as if bracing for the inevitable. When nothing happened, she cracked open her right eye trying to see what was going on.

He was standing there staring at her, like he had seen her before or somehow knew her. She had never seen him before in her life. He was a handsome devil though, a good bit taller than her with dark hair and eyes. 

All the adrenaline that had carried her out of that place and through the woods and on to this point had finally run its course. Her knees buckled and she began to fall to the wet pavement. She didn’t even have the strength to brace herself for impact….an impact that never came.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~CM~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Hotch watched as she began to collapse; as her knees buckled and she began to crumple he rushed forward and caught her under the arms, stopping her decent. Stopping for a moment to get a grip on her he picked her up bridal style and carried her to his SUV; he put her in the passenger seat and cranked the heat up, then ran to the back, opening the trunk and tossing a spare blanket into the back seat. Then he climbed back into the driver’s side and reached into the back seat to grab the blanket. Once he had the blanket wrapped around her as securely as possible, he reached around and managed to get her seat belt buckled. 

After buckling his own seat belt he did a three point turn and headed back to Rossi’s house.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~CM~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Rossi had spent the better part of 30 minutes reading over his notes and rearranging them into something useful when he decided to go check on Hotch, Garcia, and Morgan. 

“Where the hell is Aaron!” Rossi’s voice boomed through the room. 

Morgan moved and fell off of the love seat, barely able to keep the same from happening to Pen. 

“Dude, really?”

“Sir, maybe he just went to the restroom.” Garcia tried to calm the older man. 

“No, he’s gone. He’s been acting so strange lately; I shouldn’t have put this pas….”

The door flung open. Hotch was standing there, soaked through almost to the bone, holding a bundled blanket. And it looked like there was a woman wrapped up in there somewhere. He hadn’t said anything yet.

“Hotch what the hell….?” Morgan came up to him, ushering him back into the house.

“I went out for a drive to try to clear my head. It didn’t work, well, not the way I thought it would.” Sheepishly, he grinned at the others, ‘But I found her.” He thrusts the pile of blankets at Morgan, Rossi, and Garcia. 

“Bring her over here and set her on the couch. What happened?” Rossi instructed, as he spread the blanket that had been covering Hotch out and grabbed the one that he had used to cover Morgan and Garcia to  
throw over the young woman once Aaron laid her down. Her hair was dripping wet, her clothes were soaked completely, she was barefoot; her feet were all scratched up, dirty, and bleeding. And if Rossi’s eyes  
weren’t deceiving him, he thought he could make out just the faintest hint of some scratches that were likely across her chest that were poking above the neck of the shirt that she had on. 

Hotch began to relate the story that had happened, ‘It was exactly like the dream. It was night time, raining, even down to the damned phone call. And then she came out of nowhere it seemed. At first I thought I was still back here, asleep on the sofa. I had to pinch myself to make sure. Things have been getting so strange for me lately….”

As he talked, Morgan turned around and began dialing up for an ambulance. He knew one thing was for sure, that woman had run away from something, something horrible, and she was going to need to go to the hospital. 

“Yes this is Agent Derek Morgan with the FBI. We need an ambulance……” Morgan continued to give the address and a few minor details that he knew for sure. Garcia went upstairs to the hall closet to grab another blanket. She couldn’t off the woman a hair dryer or clean clothes, they had to get her to the hospital and take care of all that first….and the woman had to wake up, eventually. She had to. There were 1,000  
questions to ask her….not to mention some of the ones that Hotch might want answered.

Morgan elected to go out into the garage and wait for the EMT’s to show up. Hotch couldn’t be pried away from that woman with a stick of dynamite and a crow bar. Garcia wanted to do something to help, it’s just  
her way, but until the doctors checked the woman over, there wasn’t much that could be done. Rossi was staying with Hotch keeping his eyes on the young woman. 

“Pen come wait with me and keep me company.” 

“You betcha Hotstuff, you don’t even have to ask.”

Hotch wanted to move her hair back from her face, but not knowing what might be evidence, he didn’t feel as though he should touch her more than he already had. 

He was finally able to take stock of his ‘dream woman’. She was petite; the average height for women was around 5’4 or 5’5….she might have been close to 5’4, but she was definitely not over that. Her weight was hard to guess; she seemed like she might weight 110-120lbs at any given time, but looked as though she hadn’t eaten in quite some time and was too thin. Her skin was pale, nearly alabaster, especially with the exposure to the elements. Her hair was dark, curly, and long, nearly to her hips. Her eyes had been large and brown; her lips were shaped like a cupid’s bow and were rosy pink….or probably would be if they weren’t pale with cold. ‘Snow White,’ Hotch thought quietly to himself. ‘And where the hell did that come from?’ He saw that one of her hands was resting on the edge of the sofa, somehow having escaped being covered by the blanket. He took it into his own hands; it was so cold, she must have been chilled nearly to the bone. He began rubbing the hand between both of his to try and at least warm that up; if he could just get that one hand warmed up there had to be hope for the rest of her. 

He could hear the ambulance and the police coming in the distance. He knew he’d have to pull rank to be able to ride to the hospital with her. The locals were going to want to ask a shit ton of questions; it was their job to do so. But he was riding to the hospital with her, questions be damned. Once he got her to the hospital and knew she would be safe, he’d answer anything anybody asked him, he didn’t care about questions right now. Above all else, the existence of this woman proved that he wasn’t totally losing his mind. He’d have to thank her when he got a chance to speak with her.

The EMT’s rushed into the house being led in by Morgan and Garcia; the cops followed closely behind. Luckily the senior officer that was there had worked with the team before, and he knew how Hotch operated. 

He didn’t even try to argue.

“Agent Hotchner, I’ll wait to ask my questions tomor….well, after she’s been seen to; I know you aren’t going to even be in the right frame of mind to answer anything right now anyway. And frankly, I don’t want to be trapped in a small room with you just now.”

Rossi had to bite his upper lip, hard, to keep from laughing at that remark. ‘Yeah, the man knows Aaron well enough.’

“Thank you Lt. Danforth. Thank you….’ Hotch didn’t know where else to go with it really; he was too distracted watching the EMT’s moving his woman from the sofa to the gurney and wrapping her in their own blankets. He heard one of them say something about her pulse being rather weak, and that her pupils were dilated. They began attaching some of the sensors that they were going to use to help them read her vitals while they were en route. He heard another EMT remark at how cold she was and that this was one of the coldest bodies he had ever felt that still had any pulse to speak of.

“Yes well, until her pulse stops for good she is still a human being….” Hotch barked, making his way over to the EMT that had made the offensive comment, only to be stopped by Dave.

“Of course Sir, I was merely making an observation. I’m sorry.” 

“Agent Hotchner, if you intend to go with us, you better come along; we don’t have any time to waste. We have to get her to a hospital so they can properly work on raising her core temperature and get these wounds taken care of before infections set in.”

Hotch looked at Rossi, ‘Go Aaron, go. We’ll be right behind you in my car. I’ll call Chief Cruz when it’s not stupid-o’clock in the morning and let him know that you won’t be coming in for the next day or two, that you may need some personal time. That should buy you a few hours anyway to try to see what will happen.”

“Thanks Dave, I’ll have to owe you one.”

“I’ll tell you what, name a child after me, we’ll call it even.”

Hotch could only shake his head as he ran in the direction of the ambulance.


	5. Premonitions: Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The girl is in the hospital. The rest of the team learn about what Hotch has been going through.

Hotch wasn’t allowed behind the doors of the Emergency Department, but was lead to the waiting room; that was where Rossi and the rest of the team found him pacing when they arrived.

“What do you know?” Rossi all but demanded.

“Nothing yet; they’ve only been back there for about 20 minutes. And nobody’s come out yet to update me about her condition.

“Well Aaron, you better sit down or they will charge you for new floors.” 

“Don’t start with me….”

“Just sit down already. Emily, I want you and JJ to go grab some coffees for us while we wait.”

Both women nodded as they got up to do Rossi’s bidding. It took them 15 minutes to go grab the coffee, they wanted to go down to the cafeteria and get the good stuff instead of the kind out of the vending machine. They also wanted to give Rossi a few extra minutes to work on Hotch and get him to calm down. Emily and JJ, as well as Reid were sort of out of the loop about what was going on. They had no clue about what it was that had their boss so wound up. Rossi had just called them at an insane hour of the morning and told them to meet him and Hotch at Mercy General. Hopefully they would be receiving some kind of explanation soon. 

They made their way back to the waiting room with seven coffees and enough sugar for a small refugee camp. As they sat down, Emily requested that Hotch please enlighten them as to what was going on.

“A few weeks ago, I think….’he rubbed his forehead, so tired he couldn’t really remember things so easily anymore, ‘A few weeks ago, I started having a weird dream about driving down a dark road, at night, in the rain. Suddenly, from out of nowhere a woman jumps out in front of my car. The dream was always the same; I could never make out facial features or any sort of physical description of the woman to speak of. I would get out of my vehicle to check on her and could tell that she needed medical attention. That’s all I knew about her. 

For all this time I had been trying to figure out who the woman might be. I worried that it might have been a dream trying to tell me that something was going to happen to one of you three. But I could never be sure. I wracked my brain day and night. I would always wake up just before I got to see her face.

It got to the point that I was barely sleeping anymore. I have been so damned tired lately….”

JJ and Emily nodded at each other, his posture had been giving him away lately, but they figured that maybe he’d just been having trouble with nightmares associated with the cases they had been working. Since he never said anything to anybody, they never brought it up. They all had those nightmares; it was nothing new. And they knew the kind of man that Hotch was that he would eventually talk to someone about it when he was ready.

“Well Rossi and Morgan began to grow concerned; Dave basically cornered me about it and forced me to tell him. He took me home yesterday morning and made me go back to bed. Last night after work, Morgan and Garcia came over with take-out from my favorite Vietnamese restaurant and we talked about it some more; the prevailing idea being that if I talked about it and got it out of my system, that maybe this dream would leave me alone to sleep in peace for a change.”

“So, how’d that work out for you?” Reid asked genuinely curious.

“I still couldn’t get this woman off of my mind. After dinner, Morgan and Garcia dozed off on the love seat in Dave’s living room; I pretended to fall asleep on his sofa. Dave threw blankets over us and went to his   
office to get a jump on one of his latest books. Once I was sure he was comfortable in there, I jumped up and ran outside. I needed to go for a drive and clear my head a bit. There were just too many damned thoughts running through there. 

As I drive, Jessica called me; she wanted to find out if she was keeping Jack for the weekend. I told her that would be a great idea, just on the off chance we caught a case or something over the next couple of days, it would save a lot of hassle of trying to get Jack ready to go…not only that but it would give him some time to spend with his cousins before school started. 

During the drive it had started raining, buckets. I hung up the call with Jessica and moments later…..There she was; the woman. Just like in my dream, she darted out into the road in front of my car. And also just like in my dream, I could not see her face; my headlights were bright enough that I couldn’t make out any features on her face, couldn’t even have told you what hair color she had at first. 

Then I got out and walked around to see if I could help her.

She looked awful. She was dirty; her hair was a wet stringy mess, her feet as I would come to notice were bleeding. The clothes that she was in were not her own. She had run from somewhere, on the one hand it couldn’t be far, but on the other it was far enough that she had gotten her feet all cut up from running barefoot through the woods and God knows where else. Whatever adrenaline had been pumping through her body finally gave out because she collapsed. I caught her and put her in my vehicle and drove back to Rossi’s.

Morgan called for an ambulance. Her body temperature must have been extremely low, the EMT’s were having trouble getting a pulse. One of them made some sort of comment about her being one of the coldest bodies he had ever felt that still had a pulse.”

“So, why are we here? What do you need us to do?” JJ asked carefully.

“Well she ran from something or someone, and it was close by. I’m going to wait on the update on her condition; then I will ask them to run DNA tests to see if they can match her identity against anyone that might be in the state missing persons files. I want to find out what she was running from and put a stop to it. And I might need the team’s help.”

“Just let us know what to do when the time comes. I’ll deal with the press when we find out who she is and what was going on.” 

Hotch nodded. 

“I can work up a geographical profile of the area; try to narrow down where she might have come from based on how close you were to Rossi’s at the time. By the way, how far away were you?” Reid began questioning.

“I was maybe a mile from Dave’s, perhaps 1 ½ miles at most. Judging by her appearance and the damage on her the soles of her feet, she had been running for a while.”

“I can start with a five mile radius and see what I come up with.”

“I can take him back to the office to get started….” Morgan stated.

“I can help with the search. Once he has an area established I can hunt down ownership or rentals in the area….” Penelope pitched in. 

Hotch only nodded, his mind was back on the woman that had kept him awake for weeks now. He dropped into a chair, leaning forward he placed his head in his hands, falling asleep before Morgan, Garcia, and   
Reid had even left the waiting room. He was exhausted; the dark rings under his eyes were on the verge of rivaling Reid’s. 

It seemed as though he’d only been sleeping for five minutes, but it must have been considerably longer; Dave was waking him up.

“The doctor is coming out now.” 

Hotch snapped to his feet, swaying, a little unsteady from the effects of sleeping so hard; Dave placed a steadying hand on his shoulder.

“I’m Dr. Billings. You must be Agent Hotchner.”

“Y-Yes sir.”

“Is there anything that you can tell us about the Jane Doe?”

“Jane Doe?”

“Until we are able to confirm the identity of the young woman, we don’t know what to call her.”

“All I know is the fact that I found her in the middle of the road. I don’t know her name or where she comes from. I know absolutely nothing about her.” Outside of the fact that I’ve dreamt about her every night for at least a month.

“Ok. As far as her condition….most all of her wounds were superficial. The main issues she has is that she was dehydrated…badly dehydrated; she’s malnourished, and of course she was near to freezing when you   
found her. There was some bruising to the larynx; this will cause her some trouble eating or drinking for a short time, and she will likely not be able to talk until some of that clears up. We are currently in the   
process of getting her attached to an IV to help her be able to absorb the nutrients she needs to start getting better and putting a little weight back on; she is nearly 30lbs underweight. There were marks on her   
that looked as though she was burned with either a cigarette or a lighter on numerous occasions. There was a lot of heavy bruising….a cracked rib or two. Her feet had a lot of cuts and scrapes on them from having been barefoot while running for her life, a sprained left ankle. We’ve cleaned and treated her feet and have bandaged them up. They should heal nicely. You’ll be able to see her soon if you’d like, we’ll be moving her into her own room within the next hour or so.”

Hotch was trying to take everything in, but his tired mind seemed to tune the doctor out sometime after he heard that her wounds were mainly superficial. As soon as he heard that woman was going to be alright he could no longer concentrate on a word the doctor said. 

Rossi had no such trouble; he was quite rested in comparison to Hotch. 

“Dr. may I ask…..were there signs of sexual assault?”

“As a matter of fact Agent Rossi….Yes, there were. We have collected evidence and sent the assault kit to the lab along with the clothes she came in wearing. Since we know the clothes don’t belong to her, we are   
hoping for the best as far as collecting DNA.”

Hotch’s head had snapped back up from watching the floor when he heard Rossi’s question. Why hadn’t he thought of that? And then the doctor’s answer……well damn. 

The doctor turned to get back to work, Hotch collapsed back into his seat, followed closely by Rossi in the seat next to him. As tired as Hotch was, his mind had started replaying what the doctor had just told them   
as he continued to drink his coffee. Rossi turned to Emily and arranged for her to go out to Aaron’s and pick up a change of clothes for him; Hotch’s clothes might be drying out, but there was no sense in him having to stay in them and catch a cold himself. Luckily for them, Hotch’s place was only a 15 minute drive from the hospital. After finishing his coffee, Hotch dozed off in the chair again while waiting for Prentiss to   
come back; Dave kept an eye out for a doctor or nurse to come and tell them when it would be alright to go see ‘Jane Doe’. 

After a 30-45 minute round trip Prentiss had arrived with a bag of clothes, tooth brush, tooth paste, and a wash cloth (in case he wanted to wash his face) for Aaron; she had packed a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, along with a zippered hoody for him to put on in case he felt chilled after having been in those wet clothes. Rossi nudged him awake and told him to go change, and that by the time he was done they would probably be allowed in to see the woman. Hotch only nodded. Now that the dream that had haunted him the past few weeks had come to pass, Hotch had begun to feel how tired he really was. 

Just as Dave predicted, within moments of Aaron coming back from the restroom, a nurse stepped out to tell them that the young woman had been moved to a private room…room 2527 as a matter of fact…and that they could go see her now if they wished. Hotch nodded, and the nurse began to lead them in the direction of the room. 

Upon entering the room Hotch, Rossi, and Prentiss saw the small woman lying in the bed, wrapped in several layers of blankets, hooked up to an IV. She was still unconscious, whether that was from her ordeal or the drugs that were likely given to her was anybody’s guess. 

The doctor knocked on the door and entered right behind the team-mates. 

“We have been working to raise her body temperature to a more standard level on top of everything. We gave her a dose of pain medication mainly due to the situation with her ribs and that sprained ankle. She did come to for a brief couple of moments when we had her in the ER. She didn’t say anything, likely due to the damage to her larynx, but she did try to look around a bit. She seemed to relax somewhat when she realized that she was in a hospital. I think she was looking for you sir. She did become slightly agitated when she couldn’t seem to find a familiar face.” With that said the doctor checked to make sure that everything was properly hooked up and that the patient was resting as comfortable as possible for the time being. 

“I’m staying in here with her.”

“Sir, I don’t know how wise of a choice that would be.”

“Dr. Billings, I don’t really much care about your opinion. Until we identify her, she has no family or anyone that can look out for her. And in case you’ve forgotten, she was running from something or someone. Until we find out what or who that was, I don’t think she should be left entirely alone. I’m staying, that’s final.”

“Besides Dr. Billings, you said it yourself that she became agitated when she did regain consciousness and she couldn’t find him. Just imagine holy hell breaking loose when she wakes up this time and is in a strange place with strange people around her.” Rossi arched an eyebrow at the doctor in defiance.

“Fine. Just don’t get her stressed out any more than she will already be.”

“I have no intentions of stressing her out. But I think that it would be worse for her to wake in a strange place surrounded by a roomful of people she’s never met, don’t you?”

“Very well. I will let nurse Mayor know to keep an eye out in case you or the patient need anything. But Agent Rossi, you will have to leave for the night. Now if you will excuse me, I must make my other rounds. I’ll   
be back around again later to check in.” 

“Thank you doctor.” Both Rossi and Hotch replied. Rossi watched the woman in the bed sleeping, he watched Hotch watch her. She seemed so small with that tube sticking out of her nose; and currently she was lying there in a no-nonsense hospital gown. Rossi had to wonder how long it would take Garcia to think of that and go shopping. 

As if sensing Rossi’s thoughts, Aaron spoke with a tired chuckle. “I wonder how long it will be before Garcia will go shopping and buy some clothes for….her to wear….or for that matter, to come in and start giving   
her a make-over.” 

“She’s probably already started making plans to take a day or two off to do just that.” Rossi replied.

“I’m going to go ahead and get home. Call me if you need anything at all or if anything changes with her.” 

“Thanks Dave.”

Rossi patted Aaron on the shoulder before leaving. Aaron pulled a chair up to the side of the hospital bed so he could be close to the woman in case she woke up. He took her left hand in both of his, her finger tips were still cool to the touch but she didn’t feel as completely frozen as she had before; that had to be something positive. He watched her sleeping, wondering what it was that had her run for her life the way she had. Little did he know just how much things would change over the next few days or weeks.


	6. Premonitions: Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hotch's dream woman wakes up.

She finally felt warm. That was the first thought she could even fathom. She had a lot of aches and pains though. Why? There was someone holding her hand. Again, why?. She was terrified to open her eyes. She couldn’t think of where she might be or why she was so grateful to be warm. Had she been cold before? Why was there a stranger holding her hand? She knew her heart rate had picked up, she was starting to breathe a little more deliberately. If she could just force herself to open her eyes she could find out if she had anything to be worried about. 

Almost with a start her eyes flew open. Bad idea, bright lights everywhere! She closed them almost immediately and decided to try to take it slower, trying again. Ever so slowly she began to raise her eyelids millimeter by millimeter, letting her eyes adjust to the level of light that was in the room. Once they were nearly completely open she turned to see who was holding her hand.

His hair was dark. Judging by the way he was cramped in that chair next to her bed, he looked like he might be on the tall side with a lean, athletic frame maybe. His features were sharp, prominent brow ridge, nose, and sharp cheek bones. His left cheek was resting on her hand that he was holding. She could feel the warmth from where he must have been in this position for a while. She’d kill to be able to wiggle those fingers; that hand had fallen asleep a long time ago. She wanted to use her other hand to touch him, to touch his hair to make sure he was real and that she wasn’t back in that….place….and that Damian and his men….

Suddenly she began to panic. The thought that those men might be looking for her….she began to wiggle her fingers, to try to pull her hand away from this stranger…but his grip was damned firm for someone that was supposed to be asleep. She kept trying to tug her hand loose. It wasn’t working. 

Hotch began to wake up and saw her freaking out. He stood to his full height, reaching out his free hand to the hair that had fallen in her face as she tried to get herself free of the tubes and things that kept her bed bound. She stopped, looking up at him….

It was him! She had been having these damned dreams for months that a tall stranger with dark hair was talking to her; all she remembered about the dream, other than the vague description of the stranger, is that she had felt 100% safe with him. She didn’t know what he said to her in the dream. She didn’t remember where they were in it. She remembered nothing. All she knew was that she hadn’t felt that safe with anybody since her parents died when she was 13. 

Instantly she calmed down, knowing somehow, that this was that same guy. She tried to open her mouth to speak, and she couldn’t make sound come out, and she became scared. She began to try harder.

Seeing her struggle, Hotch ran a hand across her forehead, telling her that she had been badly injured and was unable to speak just at the moment; he said he would step out to call the doctor to her room to check her out since she was awake now. Before he could get far from her she reached out and grabbed his arm, just above the wrist in the tightest grip she could manage. She tried one more time to speak, but still no sound or words would come out. 

“Ok, I won’t go anywhere. But I will push the nurses call button. We need to get your doctor in here.”

The woman calmed down and nodded her head in agreement. Once the nurse had been called she came and saw that the patient (or not so patient) was awake. 

“Let me run and page the doctor, he will want to give you a quick check to see how you are doing. I’ll be right back with him.”

While the nurse had gone to page the doctor as she had promised, Hotch looked over at the woman and noticed her staring at him.

“You probably want to know my name at least, am I close?”

She nodded.

“Aaron Hotchner. I work for the FBI.” 

Her eyebrows arched in some level of astonishment.

“I know, you couldn’t have gotten much luckier than you did getting found by someone that works for law enforcement, much less the FBI.”

She rolled her eyes a little and nodded again in agreement. But then she placed her hand on top of his, gaining his full attention. 

“You remember something about what happened to you?”

Another nod. 

“I can call someone from my team to take a statement.” At that, the woman arched one eyebrow and slightly tilted her head to one side.

“Oh yeah. Sorry, the whole ‘not able to speak’ thing. How are we going to get the statements?” Hotch thought out loud. 

The woman started moving her hands quickly…sign language.

“Only one person on my team really knows that much sign language….and he doesn’t know enough to keep up with you I’m afraid. He’s a genius, one of the fastest readers in the world probably….throw ‘War &   
Peace’ at him sometime and he can hand it back to you in like 15 minutes. But I don’t know how he’d keep up with sign language, at least not at the speed of light.”  
The woman leaned over, ripping open one of the drawers in the cabinet beside her hospital bed. She let out a little squeak of triumph when she found what she was looking for. She tried to pull a notepad out of the drawer but it was just an inch or two out of her reach. Hotch saw her start to lean over and reach for it, nearly rolling out of the bed, until he jumped up and stopped her.

“You better be careful. You have enough problems without falling too. I’ll get it.” He reached into the drawer and pulled the pad out, setting it down on the tray table in front of her; next he stood and made sure to lift the railing on her bed. “No accidents.” 

“I see our patient is awake.” The doctor announced as he entered the room. The woman leaned her head completely to the left, a sardonic look on her face that spoke volumes. If she could have found her voice,   
Hotch was almost certain that it would have made the words ‘No Shit’ come out.

“Well, she’s awake. But, I’m not sure how patient she is.”

“It’s quite alright Agent Hotchner. She’s probably just tired of being cooped up in the same place for so long a time. I’d have to guess she wants to get back to her own life sooner rather than later.”

The woman who had long ago stopped paying attention to the conversation and managed to snag a pen that was lying on the tray table just shot a thumbs up from nowhere, causing the doctor to chuckle; she herself was too concerned with whatever she was writing to care what the doctor thought. 

“Ma’am, I need to do a quick check to see how you are coming along, how well your recovery is progressing. I’m going to have Agent Hotchner step just outside the door…” the doctor said, having rested his hand on the tray table momentarily. 

Suddenly, the pen came slicing through the air, being jabbed into the surface of the tray table, landing right between two fingers on the doctor’s hand, narrowly missing stabbing the hand altogether.

“Or Agent Hotchner can stay….”seeing the young woman nodding her approval of the second option.

“I’m sorry doctor. She began to panic when she thought I was going to leave the room to even have you paged. I’m not sure what’s going on. But, I’ll stay if that’s what she wants….if that will keep her calm enough to run the check on her.”

“Thank you for that Agent Hotchner. After whatever happened to her, I should have thought about how she might respond to being left alone.”

She scribbled another quick note and held it up, ‘DUH’, that caused Aaron to nearly laugh in spite of himself.

The doctor went through the minor diagnostic check; shining the light in her eye (which she greatly appreciated) to check her pupils, he took a look at some of the bruises, lifting her hospital gown slightly, he checked the wrappings around her ribs to see that they were still at the right tension…not too tight, but tight enough to do the work.

Finishing up the once over, ‘It looks as though things are moving along just as they should. However, I will schedule a scan to be done to be more certain. We can do that tomorrow I think, a little before lunch. Then you can come back in here, have your lunch and be able to rest after that. Does that sound good to you?”

“Would rather go home. That would sound better’, her next note for the doctor read. 

“Maybe so. But, considering all the injuries that you sustained, I want to keep you for a couple of days at least.”

She grimaced, showing her disdain for that idea, but ultimately shrugged her shoulders, signaling her acquiescence. 

“Alright then, I’ll let the two of you get back to your conversation; in the meantime, I will schedule the scan for tomorrow. See you a little later young lady.” 

As the doctor walked out of the room, she got busy writing another note, holding it up for Hotch to read.

‘Conversation? Was he serious? Funny ass old man.’

“Something tells me that I should be grateful for the peace and quiet, that if you could talk, you’d be hell on wheels.”

‘You have no idea.’ She even added an evil smiley face as a bonus.

“It’s killing you isn’t it?”

‘Through gloating?’ 

“Alright. I will call my team and have them come here so you can tell them whatever it is that you want.”

She grabbed his arm again, looking worried.

“I won’t leave; I always keep my phone glued to my side.” 

Hotch pulled his phone out of the clip that was on his hip, flipping it open and hitting number one on speed dial. 

“JJ.”

“It’s me, she’s awake and she wants to ta….she has some things we need to know.” Seeing the look that the woman gave him, he smirked. 

“Alright, you want me to bring the rest?”

“Yeah, it probably wouldn’t hurt for them to hear, I mean see, what she has to say. We can start brainstorming about how to catch the people who are responsible.”

“Alright, we can be there in about 15 minutes, maybe 20 at most. You want us to bring you and the woman anything to eat?”

“Sure, I just want a sandwich. Soup for her, in case it’s harder for her with the swelling and bruising in her larynx.” 

“You got it. I’ll have Garcia stop by the mall and grab her some clothes just in case she wants something to wear instead of the hospital gown.”

“Good idea. It might help her current demeanor a little. She’s getting rather cranky.”

“Very well, see you in about 20 minutes.” 

“Thanks JJ.” 

Hotch ended the call, ‘Well, my team will be here soon. One of my people will stop by and get some clothes or pajamas for you to change into. I think everyone really wants to meet you.”

‘Why? They don’t know me.’ She held up the note.

“They sort of do, actually. That’s sort of my fault.”

‘What did you do?’

“It’s a long story. I can tell you about it later. They will be here soon enough.”

‘Tell me while we wait.’

“Really?” He saw her nod. “But to be fair, I don’t know your name yet.”

‘Never said I’d play fair. I’ll tell you my name when everybody gets here. That way I only have to tell my story once.’

“Alright. You win. For weeks I had been having these dreams about a woman running out in front of my car, and that I was supposed to stop and help her. I had no idea who she was or what she looked like, but I   
knew I was supposed to stop and help her.”

‘Awww. You were dreaming of me. That’s cute.’

“That’s what you got out of that?” 

She wrinkled her nose at him as she sort of giggled the best she could; the sound came out a little garbled, but it was a giggle. The rest of the time they sat waiting for the rest of the team, Hotch and the woman watched a little TV, the news actually. There was a report about a young woman with dark hair going missing. Along with the news report there was a photo of the woman that they aired to aid in the description.   
She looked a lot like Hotch’s dream woman in the hospital bed. 

The hand that she placed on top of his was ice cold. 

“Do you think this has anything to do with what happened to you?”

The woman drew the shape of a Y on the back of his hand and continued to spell out ‘Yes’, never taking her eyes off of the screen. That news report only took a few moments to get through; there weren’t a lot of   
details yet about what happened, and if there were details to be had, the police were trying to keep them quiet until they knew more.

After they watched the news, the young woman became sort of quiet, even pensive; she started looking out of the window, thinking. 

“What are you thinking about? I know that look when I see it.”

Taking up her pad of paper and the pen again, ‘That woman is lucky. She has people that miss her and will look for her. I don’t. I have nobody that would ever miss me.’

After showing Hotch what she wrote, she placed the pad and pen back down on the tray table and turned over on her left side, away from Hotch….but not before he saw the one big fat tear that slid slowly down her right cheek.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, so that is where I’m going to end that chapter. There wasn’t a lot that happened in it, but it was mainly about Hotch getting to know the woman a little bit, or at least the bits of her personality that couldn’t be contained. Next chapter, the team comes in to speak with her. We will FINALLY be able to name her, and learn a bit more about who she is. Reid will at least know of her through academic circles. Rossi will have ties to her somehow. And of course she will become Garcia’s little pet project as far as trying to shop for her until she is able to fend for herself.


	7. Premonitions:Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Annalisa tells the rest of the team a bit about what happened to her up to the point that Hotch found her.

JJ, Morgan, Emily, and Reid came to the hospital. They took the elevator to the designated floor and walked to the nurse’s station, Morgan flashing his badge and a smile.

“We’re here to meet with Agent Hotchner; there is a patient here that is under his protection.”

“Yes sir, right this way. “ The nurse couldn’t help but drool a little bit. 

Walking down the hall next to the nurse, Reid smiled, knowing what she was thinking…he’d seen the look she had given Morgan. And, he could tell she was still undressing Morgan with her eyes. 

“Ma’am?” Reid said to get the nurse’s attention.

“Yes….”

“I wish you luck with whatever you fantasize will happen. He’s engaged. And even if he was single, you wouldn’t stand a chance. His fiancée works for us as a technical analyst and she could ruin your life from the   
comfort of her keyboard.”

“Oh really?” The nurse seemed to ask snidely.

“Yes. How would you like to try to find a job anywhere in the world when there would be no proof you were ever born in the first place? Ah, here we are. Don’t you have some papers to file?”

The nurse walked away grumbling under her breath. Reid just shook his head and laughed. He couldn’t blame the woman; better women than her had fallen by the wayside, she wasn’t the first, and she wouldn’t be the last.

The remaining team members saw Hotch in the hospital room, sitting at the bedside of a young woman who was currently turned with her back to him, curled up. They could hear her sniffling.   
Hotch spoke first as soon as they entered the room, ‘We have a problem. It seems as though there has been a woman to go missing and our friend here seems to think that this latest disappearance has something to do with her case. And, where are Rossi and Garcia?”

“Garcia heard about what was going on and she ran out to immediately get the woman some clothes. Rossi went along to carry the credit card.” Emily said with a smirk on her face. 

“I don’t think Rossi is going to know what hit him. Baby Girl can shop like a professional.”

Reid sort of snickered, ‘Good thing he’s independently wealthy.”

“Well we need to start getting a statement from her as soon as possible so we can start building the profile of the UNSUB(S); if this latest girl is still alive she won’t be for long. We have to assume that we have less   
than 48 hours or we will be picking up a body.”

The young woman heard what he said, and turned back over onto her back, nodding her agreement. She knew better than anyone what sort of time restraint they were working with. 

“She will have to write most of her statement down. She can’t speak yet.”

“Does she know sign language?” Reid asked.

“And how. She can use it if needs be, but while ago she was signing so fast I had no prayer of keeping up.”

Emily spoke first, “Let’s start with something simple. What is your name?”

There was furious writing taking place. ‘Annalisa Di Gasperi….’

“La Volpe?”

The young woman turned her gaze to Reid, nodding that, yes that was her nickname.

“You know this woman?” Hotch asked.

“Only by reputation. She is a professor of History at Old Dominion University; she was one of the youngest tenured professors in the country. She concentrated on Ancient, Medieval, and Renaissance/Tudor era   
history. And she holds degrees in literature, film/art history as well. Around the academic circles they refer to her usually only as La Volpe.”

“Why?” Morgan had to ask. 

“La Volpe is the Italian feminine form of ‘the Fox’. And as you can see, she is highly attractive….”

There was more quick writing, ‘Awww, thanks.”

Reid grinned quickly before continuing, “And besides her parents were both from Italy. And, in the world of academics and education, she’s one of the best looking women we have…..one of my friends referred to her as the geeked out version of Heidi Klum.”

Still more writing…’Tell your friend he is wrong. I am sooo much better.” Then as if to put the cherry on top, she winked at Reid. Emily had to stifle a chuckle. 

“Ok, what do you remember about what happened to you?” JJ was ready to move on.

There was some writing going on, not as fast as before; it was as if she was taking her time, trying to remember as much detail as she could to tell them. Her little tongue stuck out of her mouth in determination   
when she was writing, so the team knew that it had to be a big deal. 

“I was leaving the house and getting into my car. Someone came up behind me and put a rag over my mouth. I woke up in a run-down building. I don’t know what kind, but it looked as though it had been   
abandoned for quite some time….except they, the men, had gotten some raggedy old used furniture to dress it up like some sort of God forsaken club house of theirs. They were always bringing different women in….most of them didn’t last more than a few days. At first I couldn’t understand where the women went, until one day I saw two of the men carrying out a rug that was rolled up. There was red hair sticking out of one end of it. I had only seen that girl 3 days earlier, and she was rolled up in the rug.” 

“How do you think that you were able to last so long?” Emily asked.

“The leader of the group….The others called him Damian….he wanted to keep me for himself. But the others were getting sick of it; one named Joshua most of all. He told me that killing me would be more fun for   
him than killing the others…..”

“Ok, well, I have some of the techs back at the office looking through the missing persons reports for the last few months. Reid and I need to get back to the office to see what they might have found out so far and keep working on the geographical profile.” JJ started getting some things together.

“Wait.” Reid held up his hand. “Where is your home? If we know where you were abducted from we can factor that into the profile.”

Annalisa wrote down the address on a piece of paper, handing it over to him. 

“Thanks. We’ll be back later.” 

“Well for now she needs to rest some.” Hotch instructed.

“But I’m OK….” Annalisa wrote.

“That wasn’t a request….” Hotch arched an eyebrow at her.

She wrinkled her face up in discontent; but she did relax back onto the pillows, setting the pen and pad of paper down on her lap. It was only a moment or two and the team realized that she was already fast   
asleep; Hotch stood and pulled the blanket up almost to her shoulders to make sure she was warm enough. 

Sensing the looks that he was getting from the team, “It’s just that she has had so much trouble getting warm since I found her.”

“We haven’t said anything at all Hotch.” But Hotch could tell by the gleam in Morgan’s eyes just exactly what he was thinking.

“Really? Call Rossi and let him know what’s up. He may want to go out to her house with one of you to look around.”

“Yep. And we’ll tell Pen what room you’re camped out in while we’re at it.” Morgan winked mischievously at Hotch as they left.

It was nearly two hours later and Rossi had brought Garcia by the hospital so she could take the bags of newly bought items up to Hotch and his mystery woman. As soon as Garcia saw her she immediately went into big sister mode; you couldn’t have stopped her if you tried.

 

“She’s damned adorable, once you look past the bruising and injuries.” Garcia said quietly as soon as she saw her. 

“Did any of you happen to get her name, or are we still calling her Jane Doe?” Rossi, ever the no-nonsense thinker.

“Her name is Annalisa Di Gasperi. She’s a tenured University Professor at Old Dominion, in the history department. Reid has read some of her work, so he knows about her, professionally speaking at least. We have   
gotten her address,’ Hotch handed him a copy of that. “You can meet one of them out there and go through the house and the grounds if you like. She said…..well wrote….that she had been snatched from her own driveway as she was about to leave for work one morning. So I’m thinking that it is someone that knew something about her….But then again it could just as easily be someone that had been stalking her for weeks.   
We’ll be able to narrow it down once we find a cell phone or PDA….we will be able to look for links in the people that come in and out of her life.” 

“Ooh! I can help with that boss man.”

“I was counting on it.” Hotch looked at Rossi; he was looking at the girl in the bed. Since she had been somewhat cleaned up at the hospital, you could tell more about how she looked, etc.

“What is it Dave?”

“Nothing; it’s just that something is familiar to me about this girl. I don’t know what it is.”

“Well, for now, go check out the house and see what you come across.” 

Rossi nodded and made his way out of the room; he was on his way to meet Prentiss and Reid at the woman’s home. Morgan was going to help Prentiss, but when he saw how many books and things that were   
throughout the house, he knew this was a job for Reid. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~CM~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“This is all you pretty boy. Knock yourself out.” He grinned as he left to go back to the office. 

Reid was actually kind of grateful. He was at ‘La Volpe’s’ home. He got to see her personal library, some of the artwork and films that she had collected over the years; this was like a trip to a museum for Reid. He   
was nearly as giddy as a school girl. 

“Those must be her parents,’ Emily said pointing to an 8x10 photo in a frame that was on the mantle. “Her father was handsome….and her mother was gorgeous.”

“From everything I have ever read about her, they were both from Italy. I know for a fact that her father was born and raised in Venice. But I can’t seem to remember where her mother was raised. They had both   
been university professors. But when her mother became pregnant she gave up her career to raise her daughter.”

“Where are they now?”

“They died in a car accident when La Volpe was 13. She was in the car with them. After they died she was raised by an uncle….he wasn’t a biological uncle; he was just another professor…someone her father had   
been friends with for ages. She had known him since she was an infant. I’ve only ever seen him referred to in dedications of some of the work that she’s had published….here.”

Reid held up a book that had just such a dedication, ‘For my dearest Uncle Gianni, I love you so.’

“She must have grown quite attached to him after her parents died.”

“Yeah, and then he died a few years later. She was about 25 I think. She had just earned her Master’s degree, and was on the verge of working towards her doctorate. If I’m not mistaken he died from heart failure.” 

“So your friend, La Volpe….Annalisa…is basically all alone in the world?”

“Yes. Although there are a few months, maybe as much as two years, that are unaccounted for. She seems to have dropped off the map for a while. Everything I have ever read about her…the works are all silent   
about this time period. It’s a lot like Chaucer actually.”

“Here we go. Chaucer reference….”

“No really it’s almost fitting actually. But Chaucer disappeared for about six months and nobody ever figured out where he went or what he got into. They think that he based the Canterbury Tales on some of the   
travels that he may have undertaken at this time…and the characters may have been based on actual people that he met. There’s just no way to know; if there ever was any writings…letters, etc…..about it, they are   
gone now.

Usually when someone drops off of the face of the earth like that it’s because they have suffered some sort of personal loss. I know that this would have been around the time that her uncle died. But that is the only   
assumption that I can make about it. As far as what happened after she disappeared, I have no clue.”

“Maybe this will help,’ Emily had found a photo album. 

Rossi came walking in, seeing Reid skimming the books and papers that he could find to see if there was anything that might lead to finding out who did this to the young woman.

“What’s that?” Rossi asked Emily.

“Photo album. There’s a ton of pictures in here. Here’s one of Annalisa and her parents….it looks like it was her birthday or something.” 

Reid came over to Prentiss and Rossi, ‘That’s one of the last photographs taken of her with her parents before the fatal car accident. It was her 13th birthday. The crash happened that night as they drove home   
from the restaurant.”

“That poor girl.” 

“That book….” Reid walked over to a book case and began scanning it. The book he was looking for was an old leather bound volume. The cover had a burled appearance and was sort of red or ruddy in color. 

There was no visible title on the spine of the book. 

“Here it is….” Reid pulled the book from the shelf. It was quite heavy. Opening the cover to the first few pages, he saw that it was a book that Annalisa’s father had created. He had dedicated everything in it to her.

“It seems like it is filled with stories. These must have been stories that he had told her over the years. They’re basically history lessons, he would tell them to her as bedtime stories.” 

“No wonder she became a history professor.” Emily smiled. “Here’s a picture of her with her uncle Gianni”

Rossi’s ears perked up at that name. “Let me see that.” He looked closely at the picture. “Damn! I knew her name was familiar….I have seen her before. This man, her ‘uncle’…This is my brother. He died nearly 20   
years ago from heart failure. We were close growing up, but as adults we both had very busy lives…we were lucky to speak over the phone more than a few times a year. He told me once about adopting his friend’s   
daughter; that the man and wife had passed away and that they had made him guardian of their daughter in their wills. Annalisa is the little girl.” Rossi went into the next room and called Hotch to tell him what he   
had found out and to tell him that he thought that Reid and Prentiss were just about to wrap up at the house. They just had to check the old man’s study first, and that would be the last room.   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~CM~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Rossi went jogging up the hall into the study that had once belonged to Annalisa’s father. He went through every drawer on his desk. There were still a lot of papers that had belonged to him there. The old desk   
calendar that had last been used by her father was still there. Rossi read some of the dates marked on it; many of the entries were written in Italian. 

There wasn’t a lot in the office that would tell them much of anything except for a letter that had some university logo on it for the university that the old man had taught at prior to his death. The letter mentioned   
something about a fellow professor that had been let go from his position at the same university. Apparently Annalisa’s father had become privy to the fact that the man was having sexual encounters with some of   
his students and may have been the one to turn him in. Rossi took the letter and placed it in a manila that was blank on the outside and had never been sealed, it was still in its original packaging. This way there   
would be fewer finger prints or DNA to muddle through later.

Emily was going through a drawer that was in a table in the hall way, leading to the stairs. In that desk she was able to find some papers that pertained to the people that were hired as grounds keepers for the estate. Yes, estate. The house was enormous, it made Rossi’s mansion look like government housing, and it sat on maybe five acres of land. One of the papers that had been in the folder about the hired help made   
mention of one of the grounds keepers that had been fired; nothing was mentioned of what it was about. 

Meeting back in the living room of the house, Rossi and Emily had gotten with Reid to compare notes and decided that they had at least two people that would have had a reason to dislike Annalisa’s father….he got   
them fired from their jobs. They would have to get Garcia to dig into their lives and see if there were any other ties to the family. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~CM~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Once Annalisa had woken up, Garcia made Hotch leave the room. Hotch had explained to Annalisa that Garcia had brought some clothes with her for the young woman to change into. When the door to the room closed behind Hotch, Annalisa had a note she wrote for Garcia, asking her how she knew what size to buy.

“Oh sweetie…JJ said that you were shorter than her and Emily; actually she said you were kind of tiny. She said that you were tiny, but that you had a hell of an hour glass figure. I ran with that. I stuck with sweat   
pants and t-shirt, with a hoodie; that way if they are a little too big at least there is a draw string, and you don’t have to worry about them falling completely off of you. At least it’ll be better than that old hospital   
gown.”

Annalisa nodded her head in agreement.

“Come on, I’ll help you get changed.” Annalisa nodded again, but slowly, like she wasn’t sure about whether or not she wanted a stranger to help her with this or not. Eventually common sense won out; she knew   
that she couldn’t possibly get this done on her own. And this brightly colored strange woman was way better than this Aaron person helping her. He seemed nice. And Annalisa really wanted to believe he was. But   
she had just escaped from being held captive by five men that looked like nice young men by the light of day. You didn’t know what they were like until you were left alone with them. 

While Garcia was getting the new person dressed she tried to make small talk, never mind the fact that it was mainly one sided.

“What about your parents? I’m sure they were looking for you all of this time.”

As Annalisa got settled back in her spot on the bed, she shook her head sadly, reaching for the pad of paper and her pen; she made a note for Garcia.

“My parents were killed in a car accident on my 13th birthday. The only other family I ever had lived in Italy….Venice, actually…where dad was from. But most of them are gone now….Just a few cousins I barely know   
scattered to all corners of the universe.” 

“You poor thing; my mom and dad were killed in a drunk driving accident when I was 18. But, at least I do have 4 brothers, half-brothers actually…I mean we don’t talk anymore. After our parents died, our family   
fell apart. But at least they are there, if any of us ever decide to repair our relationship. I can’t imagine having nobody. Sometimes when I feel lonely at least I have the team. They’ve been great. I hope you will get to know everybody. I know we’re all excited to meet you.”

“Why? I’m not that special.”

“Are you serious? Reid says you’re awesome, in a geeked-out, crazy intelligent sort of way….coming from Reid, that’s huge. And besides, you’ve been making boss man dream of you without even knowing you first.   
That’s a big deal. He’s always so stuffy.” 

“Never noticed…..” Annalisa rolled her eyes.

“But he’s awesome. Our whole team is full of super-heroes. Emily is ‘Wonder Woman’, JJ is a lot like Dr. Jane Grey from X-Men….Reid makes me think a bit of Professor X….’ Penelope giggled…”Rossi is like   
Superman’s human father. Morgan is Captain America…”

“Who’s Aaron supposed to be?”

“Oh, the boss is Superman of course. He doesn’t necessarily stop bullets or leap tall buildings in a single bound…but he did survive being blown up once and being stabbed one time…the dirty freak stabbed him   
like seven times I think.”

“What does that make you on this team of heroes?”

“I’m the brains of the outfit…well as far as the work it takes to dig through people’s lives online. I can take something as mundane as credit card records and see where someone has eaten or done business over   
months and track where they have gone to see what sort of craziness they have gotten up to. If someone is killed, I can look up anything on the people and find out if there was ever a connection to whoever killed   
them.” 

Annalisa nodded again. Garcia could see the girl’s eyes getting heavy.

“You should go to sleep and get some rest…”

Annalisa shook her head ‘no’.

“I’ll call Hotch back in here to sit with you if you want; I know you barely know me….”

The girl was busy writing and held up what she had. 

“I can’t sleep anyways.” And she shrugged her shoulders as Garcia read it.

“Nightmares, huh? I think all of the members of our team have ‘em pretty frequently, too. Some of the cases that we work can get sort of creepy and hellish. What are yours about?”

“The things that have happened….since….” Garcia read the note. 

“I could get Hotch to make the doctor give you something to help you sleep at least a little bit….it might be worth a try.”

“Sure…I’ll try it.” Then she wrote something else down quickly, holding it up for Garcia to see. “This shirt didn’t have tags on it….Where’d it come from?”

“It’s one of Hotch’s FBI T-shirts that he wears when he’s bummin’ or out for a jog; don’t worry, it is clean though. I got it out of his office before Rossi dragged me to the store.” Garcia couldn’t help but chuckle a bit   
at the look on Annalisa’s face. “I wasn’t sure what size top to get you, based on what description that JJ was giving me, I didn’t want to get one that was too small.” 

“Well at least that makes sense.” 

Garcia fought grinning. Annalisa was cute as hell in Hotch’s shirt; the excuse she gave the girl was only half true. The other half was that she was going to do whatever she had to do to play matchmaker. 

Hotch was an awesome man; always so kind to everyone that he knew, honest to a fault sometimes, good at his job….the only people that had any reason to hate or fear him were UNSUBS…and they had better run   
and hide. 

And Garcia didn’t know a lot about this woman yet; however with the aid of her ‘babies’ it wouldn’t take long to brush up on her. But she knew the woman was basically alone in the world with no family. She might   
have a few friends, people she worked with, but so far nobody knew anything about them. The local L.E.O.s had been alerted that this woman had been found. And if one of her colleagues had reported her missing   
in the first place, it’s likely that the cops or a detective would have notified them. Where were her friends now? 

No matter, Penelope Garcia was playing matchmaker. And if she had her way neither one of them, Hotch or the young woman he found, would ever have to worry about being alone again.


	8. Premonitions: Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Came up with the name of Grant Topper based off of the movie 'Topper' from 1937 that had Cary Grant and Constance Bennett as the two ghosts that haunted this old guy.

Hotch came back into the room when Garcia had told him it was OK; walking in he saw her dressed in one of his old FBI t-shirts. Annalisa had dozed back off; apparently the excitement of getting some real clothes was more than she could stand at the moment.

“Garcia, what…” 

“It’s just your T-shirt, you big baby. I found it in your go bag, in your office. I wasn’t sure what sized shirt to get for her; the pants didn’t matter so much because they have a draw-string anyway.” She had to come up with something.

Hotch could tell by looking at Garcia that she was full of shit; he shook his head.

“Don’t you think that we need to let her make her own decisions?”

“She can make her own decisions….but that doesn’t mean that I won’t give her a gentle push now and then.”

“Ok, well visiting hours are almost over; they’ll be coming to chase you out soon.”

“What about you?”

“They have already said that I can stay.”

“Ooh, you flashed your badge and gave the eyebrow didn’t ya? You gave them that ‘Hotch=Boss Man’look. “

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean…”

“Liar; that look works every time. I’m just glad I never have to be interrogated by you. Rossi was bad enough. When she gets better you could use it on her to get your way…all the time. Nobody can argue with the 

‘Hotch’ eyebrow.”

“Garcia…”

“Ok. Ok. I’m going; was just saying…”

Hotch raised the aforementioned eyebrow at Garcia; he watched her end her sentence abruptly, smiling. 

“That’s the one! Ok, tell our girl I’ll see her tomorrow, maybe.”

“I don’t know if I want you two playing together.”

Garcia gasped in horror. ‘You wouldn’t dare?”

“Goodnight Garcia.”

“Later, boss man.”

Garcia smiled. Phase one of her match-making scheme was complete, or very nearly so.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~CM~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Rossi made his way back into the hospital after dropping Reid and Prentiss by the office. He quietly entered Annalisa’s room to find her sleeping quietly. Hotch was sacked out in a chair next to her bed; he was leaned over with his head resting on the side of the bed. Apparently, at some point Annalisa must have woken up because it looked as though she had been stroking Hotch’s hair, as if she had seen that he was sleeping and just stroked his hair until she fell back asleep. 

Rossi took a seat in the other chair that was several feet away; he had with him the picture of his brother with the young girl. He was going to tell Hotch about his connection to the girl just as soon as the man woke up. Rossi didn’t have the heart to wake him up just yet; Hotch hadn’t slept well in weeks, anytime that he got to have a solid hour of sleep, Rossi would see that he got it. As it was, Rossi took out his notepad and began going over some of the notes he had made for himself while he was at the house. As he looked over the notes, he decided to call Garcia and have her do some digging on Grant Topper, who was the former college professor that was fired for sexual activities with his student. He also had her do some digging on Fulton Grimes, the caretaker at the old house that was fired. There were no records kept explaining the circumstance, it was another loose end that needed to be tied up. 

Rossi ended the call with Garcia and continued to make notes in his little notepad when he heard Hotch shifting, finally waking up. Rossi grinned when he saw that Hotch had refrained from sitting up after noticing that Annalisa’s hand was on his head. Then the grin got even bigger when he watched Hotch carefully pick the small hand up and move it so that he could sit upright in the chair.

“When did you get back?” Hotch whispered as he sat up, noticing Rossi sitting there. 

“Long enough ago; seems like you two are getting comfortable with each other.” Rossi couldn’t stop the smirk that graced his face.

“Don’t start with me old man.” 

Rossi held his hands up in defeat, ‘I came to fill you in on what we know so far.”

“Alright, shoot.”

“Grant Topper was a fellow professor at the same university as Annalisa’s father. He got fired due to some allegations of sexual misconduct with some students. The letter I found in her father’s desk explaining the  
actions taken lead me to believe that he had something to do with the final decision, but there wasn’t a lot of explanation in that paper. Fulton Grimes was the lead caretaker on the property years ago, before her parents died. He too was fired. It’s a definite that her father is responsible for that, but again the record of it is pretty blank as to the reason why. I have Garcia digging up information on both incidents as we speak.”

“There’s something else. What is it?”

“I found this; it’s a photo of our girl with her uncle. It seems that there was a provision in her parents wills that stated that this man was to receive custody of Annalisa in the event that something should happen to  
the both of them. He was another professor at the same university with her father; he was one of his best friends it seems.”

“Yes. What are you not telling me Dave?”

“Aaron, this man….her ‘uncle’….was my brother Gianni. He died close to 20 years ago from heart failure.”

“So you have a sort of personal connection of sorts to the case.”

“To say the least. I never met her while she was in my brother’s care. It’s like I told Reid and Prentiss…we were all close as kids. But when we became adults, life got in the way and we were lucky to hear from each  
other a few times a year. Sometimes it was good enough to know we were all still alive….Christmas cards, phone calls for birthdays, that sort of thing. But it was enough to know that we still thought of each other from time to time. But Gianni did write to me once, it must have been a short time after he became her guardian…he was talking about how strange it was to be a bachelor and suddenly be caring for this young  
girl. And it was even harder than usual, because she wasn’t a normal kid. She wouldn’t be appeased with her bedroom painted pink and Barbies everywhere and posters of ponies and kittens on her wall. She was  
wanting pictures of Medieval kings and queens on her wall…books about the Roman Emperors….she was nothing like your usual 13 year old girl. A normal girl would have terrified him to begin with. He had no  
children of his own and knew nothing about raising one. So to have this pint sized version of her father around scared the shit out of him. He would tell me the things she was in to and I would send him books to give her for Christmas or her birthday….or if I happened to run across a painting somewhere that I thought might fit the bill, I would call him about it so he could get it for her. Gianni was a wreck those first two years. That girl with her curiosity was running him ragged.” Rossi smiled at the memory but looked up when he heard the sheets of the hospital bed shifting. Annalisa was waking up it seemed.

“Ah, it seems our girl has decided to wake up.” Rossi pointed out.

The young woman watched him, studying him, trying to figure out if he was safe to be around. Since she saw Hotch sitting near him and it looked as though they had been having a quiet conversation, she came to the conclusion that the older man must be good people. Then she saw the photograph in his hands. She began waving her hand to get his attention and tried to make a little sound until Hotch stopped her (which got him a cold stare). 

Rossi understood what she was going crazy over; it was the photo that he had brought with him. 

“You know this man, Annalisa?” Annalisa looked at Rossi nodding her head rapidly indicating that she did indeed know the man in the picture. She grabbed her note pad and pen and wrote furiously ‘UNCLE’. 

“That’s what we have come to understand; that he took care of you after your parents passed away. I have something to tell you about him.”

Annalisa looked excitedly at Rossi, her eyes almost bugging out of her head, scribbling something else on the paper, ‘WHAT!?’

“Your uncle Gianni, well, he was my older brother.”

Suddenly, her eyes took on a watery, sad sort of appearance, like she understood what pain his heart must have at losing the man he called brother. 

‘He died a long time ago.’ She wrote down.

“Yes, heart failure….’ Rossi spoke quietly to her.

‘I found him that day. I tried…but I couldn’t make him wake up.’

Rossi read that note, ‘You don’t have to apologize to me sweetheart. Gianni was a crazy old loon. He loved Italian food, cigars, and the occasional drink. His bum ticker didn’t care for those things, but he did.” 

‘But he was my crazy, old loon. And I adored him so.’

“Gianni had that effect on most people that he met, especially the ladies.” 

‘My daddy had taught me a great many things about the history of his native Italy. And then, after he was gone, Uncle Gianni got me into European history in general….prior to WWI. Sometimes when he wasn’t busy  
grading papers, I would curl up on the sofa in his study with him and he would read to me something from one of the many history books on his shelves. History books had sufficed for my bedtime stories all my life. Mama was even able to give me lessons in how fairy tales and nursery rhymes had some basis in real life. 

I’d fall asleep leaning against Uncle Gianni within the hour; he would always carry me to bed. He never had the heart to wake me up. I think he might have spoiled me a little; I blame my unnatural love of limoncello cake on that man.’

“You had him as wrapped around your finger as he had you wrapped around his it sounds like.” 

Annalisa nodded vigorously, no a bone of denial in her body.

About that time the doctor came in, glancing at Annalisa’s chart. 

“Dr. how is she doing?”

“She’s actually doing quite well under the circumstances. We’ve been able to raise her body temperature back closer to normal. Her ankle is slightly sprained. She’s not as dehydrated now, and her electrolyte levels are doing better. We’ve had her cuts and scrapes disinfected. I want to see how she does over-night, but depending on that I might actually be able discharge her tomorrow; but only if she continues to improve  
over the next few hours. I actually expected it to take longer than it has; I was fully willing to keep her for several days. But it seems that the IV that we’ve had her on has done wonders for her dehydration and that has helped with leveling her body temp., so all things considered she’s doing really well. I’m impressed.

With that being said, when she does get released, there will have to be arrangements made for someone to stay with her. Her ankle is going to still be giving her trouble, and it would be hard for her to care for herself, under the circumstances.”

“She’ll be staying with me Doctor Watkins….” Hotch saw the look that Annalisa shot him, ‘You heard the man. You can’t be alone. How would you get around on one ankle and manage to feed yourself, get yourself to the restroom?”

She wrote furiously on her pad of paper ‘I’ll manage, I always do.’

“You’ll manage by staying with me.”

‘Can we at least stay at my house?’

“That house is huge. You need to stay somewhere that is all on one level.” Rossi pitched in trying to help Hotch a bit, earning a thankful glance from the man.

The woman just glared at Rossi for a moment, ‘I just want to be around my things again.’

You could almost hear the pout in her scribble. 

“How about we go get some things from your house for you? It’ll give me a chance to see if you’d be able to stay there as long as I staid to help you…if I think that it would be a wise decision.”

Annalisa just shrugged her shoulders; she was getting tired of arguing. She didn’t need help. She was a grown woman. After the past few months of being held against her will by men all Annalisa wanted was to be  
left alone. Having this Aaron person in her hospital room was one thing and she was grateful that he had been in the right place at the right time, but having him in her house, her personal space….that was something altogether different and she wasn’t sure she cared much for it. But it seemed as though she really wasn’t getting much of a choice in the matter….Yet again.


	9. Premonitions: Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Between Hotch and Rossi, they have arranged for Annalisa to be able to go home when she is discharged from the hospital.

It was early, just after lunch, when Agent Rossi had come back to the hospital to take Annalisa home.

“Ok Annalisa, get in the chair. I’ve worked it out to where we can let you stay at your house.” 

Anna cocked her eye at Agent Rossi, wondering what he was up to.

“I hope you don’t mind that Hotch will be bringing his son, Jack with him. Hotch’s sister-in-law will be out of town for the next few days and he didn’t have any other choice.”

After Annalisa got settled into the wheelchair she grabbed her pen and paper again. 

“It’s no trouble really. I have plenty of room for the boy. And since I am being allowed to stay in my own home, it’s the least I can do.”

“Aaron is going to pick Jack up from school, take him home and get him packed up, and then he’ll be by your place later. I will be staying with you until then.”

Annalisa just nodded her head in agreement, but then she started getting agitated and wrote another note. Rossi read the note as he pushed the wheelchair.

“Yeah, Hotch is going to stop by the store on the way, with Jack to grab a few groceries at least for the next three days or so. I figured that anything left at your house looks like a science experiment gone horribly   
wrong.”

Annalisa rolled her eyes hard at that comment, at which Rossi just laughed. 

“Come on girl, let’s get you home.” Rossi opened up the passenger side door of his SUV and helped Annalisa in, buckling her belt for her. “I wanted to let you know…Agent Prentiss, Dr. Reid, and I had gone to your   
house to see if we could find anything that might shed some light on who kidnapped you in the first place. They had gone through your photo album....there was a table in the hallway that had some papers that they are taking a look at. And I found something in your father’s desk that I have them looking over. I wanted to let you know before we got there. You should hear it from one of us and not figure it out the hard   
way.”

Annalisa nodded her head in agreement. It only took about 30 minutes to drive from the hospital to Annalisa’s house, but it was like a different world. You went down a long paved driveway and were met by a huge house with manicured gardens.

“By the way, your gourmet kitchen...” Rossi looked over but noticed that girl had fallen asleep. He nudged her with his elbow to let her know that they had arrived. Her eyes slowly opened to see her house again for the first time in several months. 

As soon as Rossi stopped the car, Annalisa was already trying to get out of the car and run to the house.

“Woman sit still, I will help you.”

But, before he could get around to the passenger side, Annalisa had already pushed the door open and was unbuckling her belt and trying to scramble out of the car.

“You are so hardheaded aren’t you? Come here.” Rossi scooped her out of the car and carried her into the house. Once inside of the house Rossi sat her on the sofa in the living room and grabbed a throw that was on the back of the sofa to place over her. The whole time she was scribbling a message down on her paper.

“Well how else was I going to get you into the house? We don’t currently have a chair or anything to use.” 

Annalisa just shook her head as she got comfortable. So now I’ve become the FBI pet have I? Great, I’ll never be able to walk on my own again.

“Do you need me to go and make sure your room is in order for later?” 

Annalisa shrugged. 

“Well, I’d feel better about checking. I can make sure the windows are locked, things like that.”

‘Well, then….what’s keeping you?’

Rossi squinted his eyes at her as he stood upright and turned away mumbling. 

“Pazza,’ he mumbled under his breath…or so he had hoped, with his back to her.

In a scratchy voice that was not supposed to be making itself heard yet, ‘I heard that,’ Annalisa uttered carefully; this was followed by ‘You have no idea.”

“So you know the language then.” 

‘Of course I do, mama and daddy taught it to me.’

“Alright, no more talking for now. After I check your room out, I’ll see if there is something I can get you to drink. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

‘There is some herbal tea in the upper cabinet to the left of the stove. I hope it’s still good anyway.’

“Ok, well stay there for a few minutes and…don’t talk. I’ll be back to make you some.”

‘Aye aye captain.’

“Saputa.” Walking away Rossi could hear her giggle. 

Rossi made his rounds of her room. He had made sure that all the windows were locked. He noticed that her room had wonderful views of the manicured gardens; just beyond the one window was a walled garden and he could just make out a babbling fountain, ivy crawled up the walls. 

After checking the windows Rossi went back out into the hallway and found a closet that had some linens in it; he decided to put some clean sheets on her bed, the old ones had been on there since the day she was   
taken in the first place. After remaking the bed, he left the comforter and the top-sheet turned back so she could be placed there later. Everything seemed to be in place, nothing seemed out of order, so Rossi made his way back downstairs to make Annalisa some of that tea he had promised her.

Once he had gotten down the stairs he noticed she had indeed moved off of the sofa and gotten a book of some sort that he had not seen when he had been here earlier with Prentiss and Reid. 

“I thought I told you to stay put,” the sound of his voice causing her to jump slightly from where she had settled back down. “What are you looking at?” 

Annalisa only shook her head and stood up trying to hobble over to the fire place; once there she pulled on a bit of carving which happened to reveal that it housed a secret cubby hole. She placed the book that she had in her hands back inside and closed it. Next she hobbled back over to the couch, flopping down. 

‘Tea, please.’ Annalisa asked carefully, her voice scratchy, a hopeful look on her face that the old man would drop it.

“Ok, ok, I get it. But this time try to keep your ass on the couch.”

Annalisa couldn’t believe her luck, he seemed to let it go, at least for now. So, she nodded her agreement that she would listen to him this time; she even managed a little smile as a token.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~CM~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
It was just around 5:30 when Hotch and Jack came running in the house. Hotch had his hands filled with grocery bags; Jack was carrying his over-night bag full of his clothes and a few toys. 

“Uncle Dave, Uncle Dave, we’re here…”

“Hi Jack. I see you brought your daddy with you. Did you make him go to the store like I told you?”

“Course I did.” Hotch was grinning at Rossi listening to his son confirm that orders were followed.

“How is the patient doing?” 

“Not a patient person at all.” Hotch rolled his eyes at Rossi’s reply. 

“Where is she now?”

“The study. She was getting antsy and wouldn’t sit still, she said she wanted to go to the study and go through her books….it was better than having her jumping around on her bum ankle.”

“Alright, I’m going to go check on her. You wanna test drive the kitchen?”

“I thought you’d never ask. Jack, would you help me start dinner for us all?” Jack nodded and ran to the kitchen, grabbing a chair so he could reach the kitchen sink to wash his hands.

“Uncle Dave, I need something to wipe my hands on,’ the boy was heard to call from the other room.

Rossi made his way to the kitchen while Hotch made his way to the study to check on his newest friend. Rossi and Jack set to washing some vegetables for a salad; the old man had planned to make Penne Al 

Pomodoro. It was a vegetarian dish that he had taught Garcia to make, and it was pretty quick, since they would all likely be hungry.   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~CM~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Hotch knocked on the door to the study as he stood in the archway, watching Annalisa. She had seated herself on her father’s old leather sofa and had a throw blanket over her from the waist down. She was   
reading some old book that had belonged to him about the history of Venice, where he had grown up and spent most of his life before coming to America. 

‘Come, come. I want to show you something.’ Annalisa’s strained voice beckoned to him. 

“What is it that you would like for me to see?” Hotch made his way to the sofa, Annalisa moving carefully to give him a little space on the sofa with her. Hotch settled in behind her, draping an arm over the back of   
the couch. This made it easier for her to just raise up and let him be seated, instead of squirming all over the sofa and jostling her banged up ankle…..At least that was what Hotch told himself. If he repeated that   
enough times to himself he might actually start believing it.

Annalisa leaned back against him, she felt so small against him…..

‘This is the home where my father grew up,’ Annalisa spoke carefully, trying not to strain her voice more than she thought necessary. ‘It is faces the Grand Canal, it is part of a longer row of buildings that goes on   
for much time, as you see. Behind it, just beyond a narrow ally way is another row of buildings. And beyond that second row of buildings that face the city itself, there is another smaller canal, more like a creek   
really. And there are foot bridges that connect the two bits of earth. My father, his father, his grandfather, and so on have lived there for quite a long time.’

“It seems like it would be a wonderful place to see.”

‘There are few things that can match Venice…..there are few sights more beautiful in all the world, especially Venice at sunset. You should see it for yourself someday. You will never forget it, and you will always   
find yourself longing to go back.’

Hotch noticed the way Annalisa said some of her words, any Italian accent she might have had seemed stronger; must be the influence of having parents that were native speakers…like when she said that her   
father’s childhood home faced the Grand Canal….it sounded like fazes….or at least that’s the closest sort of sound he could come up with.

“Do you find yourself wanting to go back often?”

‘All of the time. My uncle…my biological uncle…still lives in the house. He has two children; a son and a daughter. They are a little older than me. I haven’t seen any of them in a lot of years.’

“Why haven’t you been back?”

‘It’s a very long story. When’s dinner?’

Changing the subject….she was good.

“Rossi should be done with it soon. He’s making Penne Al Pomodoro; since it’s mostly vegetables it doesn’t take long. Matter of fact, I can help you get to the dining room and get you settled in your seat whenever   
you’re ready.”

Annalisa only nodded, ‘You do not need to carry me though.’

“I see Rossi has been wearing that trick out, has he. Well, too bad. It’s my turn. Maybe tomorrow you will be able to try walking or hobbling around a little bit more. But, for tonight we are going to do what we want.”

‘Men!’

“Women!”

Annalisa started mumbling some Italian words under her breath. Hotch couldn’t understand them all; he was sort of glad he couldn’t…if he had been able to she would probably need to eat a bar of soap. As it was,   
Hotch went ahead as planned and carted Annalisa into the dining room, setting her down in a chair and getting it pushed up to the table for her. After he had made sure that she was as comfortable as possible he   
walked into her kitchen to see his son sitting at the island watching Rossi intently.

“So, how’d it go?” Rossi arched an eyebrow with interest.

“What do the phrases cazzo, figlio di puttana, mafankulo, and Testa di cazzo mean?” 

“Sounds like it went about as well as expected.” Rossi couldn’t stifle the laugh that time.

“What do they mean?”

“Not in front of the boy.”

“That bad, huh?”

“Well, the cleanest one….figlio di puttana…Aaron she called you an S.O.B. there…”

“Daddy, what’s an s.o.b.?”

“It’s a nickname that she wanted me to have….kind of like when Aunt Penelope calls me Charlie Brown.”

Rossi kept stirring the dish making sure that it was almost ready, chuckling at Aaron trying to squeak one in on Jack. Jack wrinkled his nose at his dad, arching the ‘Hotchner’ eyebrow, realizing that perhaps his   
father was stretching the truth a bit.

“Dinner is about done, I’m giving it another second or two to make sure the pasta is just right. Go ahead and get some plates and utensils out there.”

“Jack, you want to do the honors; I can carry our drinks out there.”

“M’kay daddy. Don’t spill any.” Jack looked at his father rather precociously. 

Hotch grabbed the empty glasses and the container of tea that he had bought at the grocery store; Annalisa seemed as though she might be a sweet tea sort of girl, but they hadn’t had time to make any properly,   
so store bought would have to do. Rossi brought in the large bowl that he had mixed the pasta in and set in on the table with a basket of crusty, artisan Italian bread that he had pulled from the oven. After setting   
the glasses and the drink on the table, Hotch made his way back into the kitchen to locate the silverware and bring it out as Rossi helped Jack get the other dishes situated on the table. Annalisa tried to take the   
serving spoon out of the bowl to start loading plates, until Rossi smacked the back of her hand with a tablespoon before setting it down on the napkin. This received a dirty glare from her.

“Mi scusi, stronzo?” 

“Non ti è permesso di alzare un dito. Siamo qui per aiutarvi.”

“Mi ha colpito come quello nuovo, e si solleva più di un dito.”

“È bello vedere che hai ancora il tuo fascino.”

“No, really, carry on….Jack and I were just hanging out.”

Both Rossi and Annalisa snapped their heads around as if they forgot there were other people in the room. Annalisa nodded her agreement that they needed to get back to dinner. Rossi took the serving spoon   
from her and began piling pasta onto her plate. Hotch noticed the look on her face when she saw what the meal was. 

“I made this from one of my mother’s recipes; I hope it’s edible.”

Annalisa just watched Rossi as he continued moving around the table handing out bread to everyone, and salad. It’s as if Rossi had guessed her favorite food out of the millions of possibilities, and she was trying   
to figure out how. Finally, all four people were settled around the table and started digging into their meals. After a few bites of the pasta, Hotch, Rossi, and Jack watched her, hearing her sniffle.

“What’s wrong? Is it alright?”

Annalisa nodded and in a tired scratchy voice said that it was very good, and then she continued to go on with the meal as if everything was fine. 

After the meal was over, they decided to try watching a movie with Jack; he had had taken up residence on the love seat right next to Annalisa, curling up with her, resting his head against her chest as she stroked   
his hair. Thirty minutes into the movie, Hotch looked over and they were both asleep, Annalisa had grabbed the blanket that had been tossed there earlier, the one that Rossi had used to cover her, and used it to   
cover Jack a bit so he wouldn’t get chilled; sometime after covering Jack up, Annalisa drifted off to sleep, curling an arm around the boy. Hotch smiled when he saw that Jack had wrapped an arm around Annalisa’s   
waist as well. 

Rossi helped Hotch get Jack and the girl put to bed before going back downstairs ahead of him. Once down there, Rossi started studying the fire place. He had been chomping at the bit ever since he had seen that secret compartment earlier; he wanted to know what Annalisa had hidden in there. Part of Rossi’s curiosity was just innate, being nosy and feeling left out of a secret. The other part of that was that he was an investigator by nature; and besides, Rossi was able to legitimize his snooping by deciding that this might have something to do with her case. They would never know unless they looked, now would they?

Just as Rossi had reasoned with himself long enough and had reached for the handle of the secret compartment, Hotch was coming down the stairs and caught him.

“What are you doing?” Hotch chastised in a stage whisper.

“I saw her looking at something earlier, she put it in here. I know I shouldn’t be snooping; but what if it has something to do with what happened to her?”

Hotch knew he had a point; it sucked invading her privacy after everything that had happened, but if it did have some clues, they would never know otherwise. “Alright, fine. Go ahead.”

Rossi pulled the compartment out; it turned out to be a small, rather narrow drawer of sorts. Once he had it opened he stuck his hand in and retrieved a photo album that he had not found when he was there with   
Prentiss and Reid. He and Hotch sat down side by side on the sofa, opening the album on the coffee table. The first few pictures were of what must’ve been some family of hers….it looked as though the pictures were taken in Venice many years ago. There were a few photos of the annual Carnival; some of the ones that were close ups of the crowd showed two people in purple and silver costumes that were quite chummy.   
Flipping through the album a little more Rossi and Hotch came to pictures that had been taken of those two purple and silver figures sharing a table at a café, leaning into each other talking…laughing about   
something, the candle light dancing in their eyes. On a closer look they realized that the woman in those pictures was a younger Annalisa; she had pulled her mask up so she could eat and talk with whoever her   
partner was. As they continued to flip through the album a loose picture fell out and hit the floor. Hotch leaned over to pick it up. The photo showed the same two figures, one of them they now knew was Annalisa;   
the other figure was whoever the man was with her. They were standing together holding hands, watching something in the distance, in their Carnival costumes, masks down; judging by the lighting in the photo, it   
must have been close to sunset. 

Flipping the picture over, hoping to get an idea of what it was about, all Hotch found was one word.

‘Magic’.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pazza-crazy woman  
> Saputa--sort of like a 'know it all'
> 
> cazzo-dick
> 
> figlio di puttana-son of a bitch
> 
> mafankulo-mother fucker
> 
> Testa di cazzo-dick head
> 
> Mi scusi, stronzo (excuse me asshole)
> 
> Non ti è permesso di alzare un dito. Siamo qui per aiutarvi. (You're not allowed to lift a finger. We're here to help you.)
> 
> Mi ha colpito come quello nuovo, e si solleva più di un dito. (Hit me like that again, and I will lift more than a finger)
> 
> È bello vedere che hai ancora il tuo fascino. (It's good to see that you still have your charm.)


	10. Premonitions: Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Annalisa comes to the conclusion that she must go back to Venice.

“Well I wonder what that could possibly mean. It’s entirely unhelpful.” Rossi stated in a rather sardonic tone. 

“Why don’t you ask her in the morning?”

“Smart-ass; do you think I want her under the impression that I have rifled through her things without her consent?”

“You don’t think she’s smart enough to figure that you did it anyway? Just tell her you did it and ask her what this means.”

“No thanks. I like my head and my important parts where they belong. I’ve lived this long without knowing, a little while longer won’t kill me.”

Hotch only smirked at Rossi as the old man placed the lose picture back into the album, closing the album, and replacing it in its hiding place. Not long after that both men decided it was best to turn in for the   
night; they picked two spare bedrooms upstairs and found some sheets and blankets they could use, making up the beds.

At 3:00 am Hotch rolled over, glancing at the clock; he couldn’t figure out why he was suddenly awake….until he heard the sound again. There was a creaking floor board. Silently, Hotch made his way out into the   
cavernous hallway. First he checked on his son; picking the boy up out of bed, he took him into the room where Annalisa was sleeping quietly, Jack never woke up. Shutting the door, Hotch turned around to realize he was being met in the hall by Rossi. 

“What are you doing up?” 

“I heard it, too.” Rossi showed Hotch his gun. Hotch got his own piece out of the waist band of his boxers where he had put it when he carried Jack into the room with Annalisa. Systematically Hotch and Rossi   
cleared the second floor, moving on to the first floor. There was nothing on the first floor. 

“The floor boards don’t creak on their own.” Hotch stated obviously. 

“We haven’t checked the third….” Rossi was cut off when they heard a scream come from Annalisa’s room, followed by a loud yell from Jack. Hotch and Rossi scrambled up the stairs as quickly as humanly possible. Hotch tried the knob of the door; it was locked. Suddenly, Hotch raised his foot and tore a page from Morgan’s book, kicking the door in. As the door imploded, they saw a dark figure with a mask that was leaning over the bed, grabbing Jack’s arm to toss him out of the way to get at Annalisa. Annalisa was trying to shove Jack behind her, clawing at the unknown figure the best she could.

“FBI. Freeze!” The figure turned around at the sound of Hotch’s voice. 

“I told her what would happen if she tried to escape.” The mysterious stranger ducked the shots that Hotch and Rossi took at him, shoving past them to run back out in the direction that he came. They chased after him, but he was quicker and got away.

Hotch and Rossi made their way back down to Annalisa’s room; Rossi was calling to have crime scene investigators to come over and go through the evidence that might have been left behind. 

As Rossi entered Annalisa’s room, he saw Hotch checking on her and Jack to make sure they were relatively unscathed. 

“I’ve called the in the crime scene techs; someone should be out soon to go over the scene….”

“Damn!” Annalisa was heard to say quietly; her voice still a bit rough from the injuries. Hotch and Rossi saw her trying to get out of bed. 

“You need to stay down….” 

“È necessario spostare fuori il mio vecchio modo.” With that she managed to stand on her own feet, although slightly unsteady because of her injuries. As soon as she had made it to her feet in any capacity, she began to try to get down stairs as quickly as possible. Rossi, Hotch, and Jack followed her; Jack wasn’t being left behind even if his dad hadn’t suggested he come along….this house was just large and cavernous enough to border on creepy, and a strange person had just broken in. Add that to the fact his dad was an FBI agent….yeah, Jack, as young as he was wasn’t exactly keen to stay by himself. 

After tottering down the stairs in as close to break-neck speeds as she could, Annalisa entered her father’s study. She stopped just inside the door, causing a minor pile-up, to look around briefly, flicking on the light. Everything still seemed to be in order; but one could never be sure. She ran to the desk and started rifling around to make sure that anything that she deemed important was still in its place. Rossi hadn’t paid much attention to the wall decorations before, he’d been too wrapped up in checking the desk and any shelves that he found to glean information about who had motive to abduct and torture Annalisa. Now, Rossi,   
Hotch, and Jack watched as she hit the light switch, turning the lights back out and grabbing a forensic A.L.S light….on one wall there was a reproduction, quite accurate actually of a medieval tapestry. Over the tapestry in some invisible form of writing was an old Italian proverb that she seemed to recognize.

‘I love you to papa…’ 

“What is this about?” Rossi questioned, getting a little perturbed. 

“I always wondered why daddy never used this fire place….we used them all in this house at some point in time…but in here, daddy always had some sort of alternative heat source…he never once used this   
fireplace. I always thought that was strange, but then I thought maybe he worried about the books and papers catching fire….I don’t know…I just let it go, so my dad had a quirk. He told me once when I was a girl   
that one day he would explain it to me, and show me what was going on…..And he just did. When he used to teach me how to fight in the old ways, I never questioned things. Fencing, various martial arts of his   
native Italy…I was excited to learn what he knew. I think he had planned on telling me everything the night they died. He left me a message in the book he gave me that I never fully understood until now; it’s been   
reproduced here.”

“What had he written?” Hotch cocked his head to the side studying Annalisa.

“Tre cose belle in questo mondo: prete parato, cavaliere armato, e donna ornate.”

“Three things are beautiful in this world: a priest in his vestments, a knight in armor, and a woman in her ornaments.” Rossi was heard to translate.

“Very good my friend. And do you know where you can find all three?”

Hotch, Jack, and Rossi all looked at each other for a moment, puzzled; then they looked to her, shrugging.

“Chaucer. Canterbury Tales. They were in reference to a pilgrimage to the site of the murder of Thomas Becket; he was a monk of sorts, in his vestments no less. There was a knight in shining armor…or at least a   
dude that claimed to be knight. And there were a couple of women…one being the Wife of Bath. And we all know what she was like.” With that, Annalisa walked over to a book case that sat to the right of the large   
fireplace, pulling out an old, worn, leather bound volume of the ‘Canterbury Tales’ and turned to a page in the book in regards to the Knight’s tale. There she held the A.L.S up to the book and examined it as well. 

“Al fine…”

“To the end,’ Rossi repeated in English. “But what does it mean?”

Cryptically smiling at Rossi, Annalisa dragged her fingers across part of the tiled surround in the hearth that encased the fireplace from right to left. Looking at it closely, Hotch and Rossi noticed that the tile work   
was rough, like it had been removed bit by bit from a different location and added here; and the decoration on the tile faces was in hieroglyphics. As she came to the end of the chain of hieroglyphics the men heard   
the sound of stone scraping against stone as the inset of the great fireplace moved back slightly and slid out of the way, revealing a secret door; beyond this hidden door was a hidden room with a ceiling that was   
highly decorated with carvings and paintings….it looked as though this too may have been dismantled from a previous location and brought here.

“What is this room?” Hotch asked.

“I don’t really know. I only heard daddy refer to it once or twice in the entire time I was growing up. I don’t even know if momma knew of it or not. I never got the chance to find out.”

“What do you think is kept in here?” 

“As I’ve said, I’m not really sure.” Annalisa walked over to some shelves that lined the wall and looked at the folios and papers that were on them. There was a desk, slightly smaller in size to the one in her father’s   
study, it looked quite old, perhaps Renaissance in style with a matching chair. There were a lot of compartments of varying sizes that littered the desk; there were some loose papers that sat in short, uneven stacks   
in a couple spaces on the desktop itself. There were corners of paper slips sticking out of a couple of the small drawers; notes about lord only knows what, if anybody had to hazard a guess. Most, if not all of the   
separate compartments required a key of some sort to open them. There was a trunk against one wall underneath a framed sketch of ‘The Battle of Anghiari’. 

“Isn’t that supposed to be a ‘lost’ painting of Da Vinci?” Rossi sounded shocked.

“Yes the painting is lost, but….looking at the sketch, I believe the sketch to be real. Some of daddy’s collection was built over the years through friends that he had done some work for….this is one of those things.   
Although Reuben’s did a wonderful knock-off of the painting, from what I can tell. It wasn’t spot on what the old man would have wanted, but he would have been flattered, I think, by the effort.”

“What sort of work did your father do for friends if he is able to get his hands on priceless artifacts like this?” 

“So suspicious Aaron Hotchner….Acquisitions, import/export….I never really knew for sure. I was too young to even think of asking questions.” She paced the room tapping her left index fingertip against her lips, thinking.

“I need a key…well two actually; one to open the compartments on the desk and one for this trunk. If I were a key, where would I be?” Hotch and Rossi thought she would wear a permanent tread pattern into the   
floor….”Ha! Yes. I have it.” 

She ran back through the opening of the fireplace into her father’s study and began searching her father’s shelves for a particular book. She grabbed it off of the shelf once she ran across it; she smiled as she took   
it down. 

“Annalisa?”

“Daddy had two copies of the same book. It’s about the Muscovite Company…it was something of a forerunner of the British-East India Company. Except this company dealt a lot with North-West and North-East   
passages to the orient….well with trying to find new passages that would be quicker, etc. One man, Matthew Locke, was one of the court favorites of Henry VIII…his family had been cloth merchants for several   
generations already, and were loaded…I remember daddy telling me that in one way or the other Henry gave Matthew the ‘keys to the kingdom’…Matthew was allowed into some of the King’s privy chambers,   
etc..which were places that only some of the King’s closest advisors and confidants were allowed to go. And, Matthew had a tendency toward piracy now and then….and with the help of the Muscovite Company,   
Matthew and his friends were able to fund some of Martin Frobisher’s North-West passage exploration…..etc., etc., etc. Long boring story…when we have more time….So, going on this assumption, if I was a key   
that my father had hidden I would be hidden in a book about the Muscovite Company that is heavily laden with facts about Matthew Locke, his associations, and his close proximity to the King. And father has two   
copies. One is a real book and one is false. But both weigh the exact same, so as to not arouse suspicion.” 

Laying the two books down on the desk, Annalisa opened the first one…it turned out to be a real book. Next, she opened the second book; at first she thought she had been sadly mistaken in her choice of reading   
material. It took her flipping through several chapters, worried she would make it to the end of the book without finding the keys. About three quarters of the way through the book though, she finally came across   
where there were several pages, multiple chapters worth that had been hollowed out and set right. Flipping to them, she found the two keys she needed nesting in the small space that had been whittled out for   
them.

“Score!” she almost squealed in delight. 

There was a knock at the front door….

“That’s likely to be the crime scene techs.” Rossi watched Annalisa as she grabbed the two keys from the book, shutting it and putting both books back on the shelf. Next, she ran back into the secret room, placing   
the two keys on that desktop, clicking the light switch off, and making the fireplace go back to normal. Then she hobbled quickly into the living room and flopped down on the sofa, Jack jumped into a chair that   
was across from her. She gave him a look, holding her index finger to her lips, indicating that he shouldn’t tell what he had just witnessed; Jack nodded his head in agreement. 

Rossi opened the door greeting the techs and the officers that accompanied them. Hotch had gone to the kitchen to busy himself making something for Annalisa and his son to drink. 

Annalisa snatched the blanket off of the back of the sofa, covering herself a bit, as well as a tissue and began acting like she was just about in shock at the turn of events; when questioned she was Oscar winning.   
She just couldn’t understand why these people had it out for her….

Detective Donahue began firing questions at her. “Are you sure that you have no idea what these people wanted?”

“I’m pretty positive sir. I’m a university professor. I’ve never been in trouble with the law. I’ve never done anything to anyone to cause this…at least not that I’m aware of.”

“Now, I’ve learned from your friends over here that you have only just returned from the hospital earlier in the day; that you had apparently been abducted two, maybe three months ago. Do you think this could   
have anything to do with what happened tonight?”

“It could, I guess. I know that law enforcement have yet to catch the people that came after me; but as you said, I have only just come out of the hospital. I do know that the man that was here tonight told my friends that I was supposed to know what happened if I escaped. That makes me at least think that this had something to do with my abduction. What worries me the most is that this little boy could have been hurt. You have to stop these people, detective.”

On and on it went for the better part of an hour and a half. Though Annalisa gave off the slightly panicked vibe that was appropriate for the situation, she never missed a beat answering the detective’s questions.   
He couldn’t shake her, make her stumble over her answers....It was almost as though he didn’t believe her. Rossi and Hotch both wondered how long it would be before the good detective just gave up.  
Between one to two hours later, the investigators left, shaking the hands of the two FBI agents as they went. No sooner than the door was shut than Annalisa made her way back into the study and consequently into the hidden room. Now nothing was off limits in her search. She began rifling through some of the papers on the top of the desk, looking for any key words that might lead her to an answer. Not finding what she’d hoped to come across, she began unlocking the little cubbies that were part of the desk. She was trying to unlock them so fast that she could barely steady her hand enough to get the key in the locks.

As Annalisa began to finally open up the compartments and go through them, Hotch went to put Jack back to bed. By the time he came back into the secret room Rossi had grabbed a seat on an old red Queen Anne style sofa, sitting next to him, Hotch waited to see what was going to happen. Annalisa was rifling through the papers, reading them as carefully and quickly as possible. 

“Ack! I would kill to be able to be faster at this.”

“Dr. Reid….’ Hotch began.

“No! I mean thank you, but no. It’s not…it’s not safe.”

Walking back into her father’s study, Annalisa grabbed a phone; Rossi picked out his own cell phone and pressed record as soon as she started speaking, she never saw what he did. She sat at the desk, still pouring over the papers, and going through the odd folio or two; she was speaking a mile a minute. Rossi couldn’t understand a word out of her mouth. A few minutes later, she hung up the phone, standing from behind the desk.

“Aaron, I need your help. Come with me please.”

Hotch jumped up and went with her. They went upstairs into what looked like it had been her parents’ room. She looked around for a second, almost as if she was unsure of what to do next, perhaps she was   
concerned about invading the sanctum that this room had become. After a second thought, she ran through the room pulling open the double doors on what should have just been a normal walk-in closet. It was   
large enough to have almost been a dressing room in and of itself. 

“Come, I need your help with this.” 

There was a large trunk that she knew she couldn’t carry on her own. “Bring that into the room, if you can please. It’s not that it’s that heavy, not yet…but the awkward size makes it hard for me to get it down there,   
especially in my current condition…”

“Never mind the fact that you shouldn’t even be walking right now….”

“Whatever; this way please.”

Hotch shook his head with a grin on his face. Once back downstairs in the study and hidden room, Annalisa had Rossi move the desk chair over to the trunk that was already in the room…she took the second key   
that she had found and unlocked it and found some of her father’s secret stash….small weapons…some bracers with daggers, worn around the wrists and forearms and the wearer had the capability to eject the   
daggers out just far enough to inflict damage on their opponents. There were other daggers in the trunk as well, a small cache of hand grenades…..Annalisa began to pack the items she ran across into the trunk   
that Hotch had carried down for her. She came across some odds and ends of an old uniform of sorts; it had symbols on it across the chest and on the shoulders. Hotch nor Rossi knew what they stood for.

Annalisa merely shook her head quietly as she lovingly placed it in the trunk with the other items. 

“Ah, papa, if only….” She sounded a bit wistful, biting her lower lip. ‘What adventures we could have had, you think?”

“Pardon me for interrupting, but what exactly are you packing for?” Rossi asked carefully, pulling her out of her careful tasks. 

“I must return after all. I thought the cause had died long ago, but it seems that I was mistaken. These last few months have proven that; though until tonight I wasn’t sure what the connection was. I should have   
known. I fear I have been ignoring the signs.”

“Return wher…?” Hotch tried asking, being cut-off however by Rossi.

“Scratch that….What cause?”

“Venice. We’re going back to Venice.”


	11. Premonitions: Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Preparations are made for the trip. Annalisa finds a letter that her mother had written for her years before. And, yes, I pretty much jacked the idea from Assassin's Creed (love that franchise).

“Back to Venice? Wait, I thought your father was a university professor as well; and now you’re talking about him being in the import/export business?” Rossi asked getting flummoxed; causing him to become a little thrown off wasn’t easy.

“Yes, yes. Daddy was a professor. With his intimate knowledge of the subject of history, he had a lot of people…wealthy people…collectors of artifacts etc. that would come to him for appraisals of their newest acquisitions. They wanted to be sure of the validity of the artifact and to also be reassured as to whether or not it was legal or black market. Rich people don’t care to get their hands dirty, you understand.” 

“You said WE. What do you mean when you say WE are going back to Venice?” Hotch looked at her questioningly.

“You, the old man, the boy…myself. WE.”

“We can’t just drop everything and go on a vacation to Venice. We are FBI agents with a case load that would choke a horse.” Rossi was starting to get rather put out with this young woman.

“This is true. But you’ve inadvertently seen things you shouldn’t have. The intruder from earlier was sent to kill me. The detectives that were here asking questions…Didn’t you wonder why they seemed to think that   
I had something to do with this attack? Didn’t it strike you as odd that the detective was so hostile towards me, the victim?”

“Yeah, and you told him you were fairly certain that this had something to do with your prior abduction…” 

“Which, it certainly does. Our visitor from earlier…that was Mr. Joshua. He was the right hand man to the leader of the group that took me; sort of a second in command if you will. I’d recognize that voice anywhere.   
Those cops work for the same organization as Mr. Joshua and the others work for…just a different segment of the food chain.” 

“What organization?” 

“No time for questions gentlemen. You have arrangements to make for your time away. I suggest you get on a phone and start making them. We will have to leave around dawn.” 

“I’m not going anywhere with anybody at any time until I get some decent answers.” Rossi had reached his limit with the charades. “What organization?”

Sighing, looking at the older gentleman, ‘Fine, if you must know….” She gave him another look to make sure. “Templars. The damned Templars have found me….again. Although it took them a lot longer than it did   
the last time. Hiding right under their noses seems to be what has served me the best.”

“Temp…?”

“Templars.” 

“King Richard. Crusades.” 

“Templars.”

“But they’re supposed to be the good guys.” 

“According to who? They performed a few good works, I’ll give the devil his due. But, they were not above a good old fashioned slaughter to get what they wanted either. And my people have worked for centuries   
to stop them…at all costs.” She turned wiping her eyes on her sleeve. “Some of us have lost more than others. Now, come. This is the only way I know that I can protect you with any certainty. If I leave you here, they   
will come after you. You will die. If you are with me, they will come after you. But, at least you will have some chance of survival.”

“Why would they want anything to do with us?” Hotch was glaring at her.

“Because you are with me. I escaped them, now they have to come back after me. And you were the one that saved me that night in the rain. As far as they see it, you and the old man are in their way. Hmmm.   
Probably wouldn’t be the worst idea in the history of man to have the others brought along as well. Odds are that the Templars have seen them coming and going when I was in the hospital.” She turned and grabbed a burner cell out of a hidden compartment and made a call. Speaking in a language that neither Hotch or Rossi could understand Annalisa gave the orders to have the other members of the teams, and any children that they have brought along for the ride. 

As she hung up the phone, Rossi asked a question that had been burning in his brain for several minutes.

“How do you figure the detective was one of them?”

“Our training is extensive. I can clock a Templar from a mile away. That detective reeked of the stuff.”

She let the guys take their showers and get ready first; while they were doing that she was going through some of her things deciding what she would definitely need to take with her. The trunk full of gear that she   
inherited from her father was a given, that had to go if nothing else did. She rummaged through her closet packing clothes and secondary weaponry that she kept hidden around the house. Thank God they were   
going to be able to skip security at the airport, and customs for that matter. She laid out a set of clothes that she would put on after getting cleaned up. Once Hotch knocked on the door and let her know they were   
finished with their showers and giving Jack a bath, she made her way quietly into her bathroom. She opted to soak in the tub for a while; she had no idea when she might get to enjoy this creature comfort again,   
besides the extra time would allow her to get her thoughts straight and plan more carefully. 

An hour later she emerged freshly scrubbed down, hair squeaky clean, and wrapped in a robe. She made her way into the kitchen to go make some hot tea again. As she took the tea bags out of the cabinet and got   
a box of cookies down, a piece of paper fell out of the cabinet. It was a letter from her mother. She had so many things that her father left her; scraps of paper that he always scribbled clues on when they would play their games, the cryptic leads he would leave in the books (often in invisible writings)….his sheaves of work that she had to comfort her long after he was gone. There had been little left of her mother aside from a few photos and her record collection of songs, mostly in Italian, that she brought from the old country. Annalisa would play them sometimes when she missed her mom; it made her think of the times she would be sitting and playing, watching her mother working in the kitchen getting ready to make a stellar meal, singing along, dancing when her hands weren’t mixing something….her mother would wind up with flour and God knows what slung all over the kitchen because she really got into her routine. Annalisa was a bit more like her father….more sedate, most would say. It wasn’t that she didn’t enjoy cooking or enjoy life. She did. But, for one, she had nobody to cook for but herself; there was no sense in twirling around the kitchen like a mental patient on a mountain top…there was nobody to entertain…and more to the point, she was sure she would stand as a pale impression of her mother…she would never live up to being half the woman her mother was.

The note was short, all too short considering how little there was left of her mother, and it was of course in Italian.

**************************************************************************************  
“Mia figlia,

Se stai leggendo questo, le probabilità sono che tuo padre e io sono morti. Abbiamo fatto del nostro meglio per rendere la vita più sicura per voi. Abbiamo lasciato l'Italia quando i Templari cominciarono a chiusura su noi. È in realtà nato a Venezia, come tuo padre. Ma, quando abbiamo fatto la mossa, abbiamo avuto amici che ha cambiato il vostro lavoro di ufficio, così che sembra come se siete nati in America; abbiamo mai detto in modo diverso... era più sicuro in questo modo.

Non posso dirvi il motivo che i Templari è venuto dopo noi o perché alla fine che verrà dopo di te. Imparerete la ragione alla fine al ritorno a casa, ma per dirla qui... se è stato trovato da chiunque, ma tu... che minerebbe tutto abbiamo lavorato per.

Mia cara figlia, non sai cosa darei per vedere ora... per vedere come sei cresciuto, se avete figli tuoi... ha fatto potete seguire le orme di tuo padre in un mondo di mondo accademico?

Ho lasciato lei qualcosa nella tacca nella mia vanità nella nostra vecchia camera da letto. So che probabilmente non sei stato lì poiché tutto ciò che era accaduto e ci ha portato lontano da voi, ma sono sicuro che saprete la vanità di che cui parlo.

Qualunque cosa accada, so che abbiamo fatto ciò che abbiamo pensato noi necessario, ciò che abbiamo pensato che era più sicuro e meglio... e so che ovunque siamo, ovunque tu sia, che ti amiamo... nemmeno la   
morte può fermare che...”

*****************************************************************************************  
It looked as though she had meant to keep writing, but had been interrupted, by what Annalisa had no idea. Folding up the paper carefully, she turned and raced back up the stairs towards a room she hasn’t seen in nearly 30 years. She nearly knocked Aaron over on her way up the stairs; he had to press himself close to the wall to keep from being bowled over completely.

Once she got to the door of her parents’ old bedroom she stood in front of the door, unsure of entering, but then deciding to just go for it..her mother had given her express permission. It took a shove from her shoulder to get the old creaky door to budge, but eventually she was permitted into the room. It was dusty, the windows murky from years of being neglected. The larger, more important pieces of furniture were covered in drop-cloths that were covered in dust. Annalisa went straight to the sheet covering a low-lying grouping of furniture. Carefully removing the sheet from the furniture, she revealed an old vanity with a small chair, unmistakably of Italian craftsmanship, likely from the late 17th century…the little chair or bench that came with it was of a matching design. 

Aaron had made his way back up the stairs to see where she had been in such a hurry to go; coming to the doorway of the bedroom he stopped to take it all in. There was a large, overly so, four poster bed with a solid wooden canopy that dominated the room. It would have dwarfed most king-sized beds that he had ever seen. He shuddered to think what it would have cost to have linens especially made for the bed. The posts and the canopy were all heavily carved with different historical references of people or symbols that might have meant something generations ago…..it looked to be a dark cherry as far as the type of wood used. There looked to be matching pieces of a wardrobe, perhaps two, that were on an equally grand scale. The canopy of the bed had curtains that could be pulled back or closed depending on the needs of the person in the bed. As large and grand as the furniture appeared to be, Aaron also shuddered to think of how much it would have cost to ship everything here to the states from Italy. Until Annalisa’s parents got through furnishing this cavernous house it would have nicely eaten through almost an entire year’s salary from the BAU. There were large windows that looked out onto what Aaron could only guess was some private garden; without going into the room and making it known that he was watching her, he couldn’t tell. The windows were murky from the passage of time and neglect, but they were original and still intact. He could picture this place being a romantic place to grow up in as a child; a large, bordering on cavernous Victorian mansion with all sorts of rooms that at one time had uses that would be lost on modern families….all sorts of little nooks to hide things….If he squinted just right he could almost picture Annalisa as a child bounding up and down the stairs at top speeds or sitting quietly in her father’s study listening to him regale her with some story or other, contributing to her later adoration of the worlds of history and literature. Two, he could see her as a newly minted teenager, having just lost her parents, wandering through a suddenly empty, lonely old tomb gathering a few belongings so she could start a new life with her Uncle Gianni. That brought his vision to where it rested currently. 

Annalisa was sitting at the vanity; it was just as beautiful a piece of furniture as the rest, if not more so, due to its overwhelming feminine carving and scale by comparison. There were all sorts of little perfume bottles and tubes of make-up that lay scattered along the top. Judging by the bottles of foundation that Aaron could make out, it would seem as though Annalisa’s mother would have had skin that was a shade or two darker, perhaps more olive, than Annalisa. Was her father as pale as she was, or had she inherited the pale complexion from some other ancestor? There was a pair of ladies leather gloves that sat on the top of the vanity, probably worn with time and neglect just like the windows. Annalisa held one up; her hands were substantially smaller than her mother’s would have been…she even put the glove on, pressing the ends of the fingertips to see how much different their hands would have been. Annalisa held out her gloved hand, admiring the glove itself for a moment before sniffing and putting the glove back in its place.

“She told me to look for the notch, not play with her stuff….” Aaron heard Annalisa scold herself quietly. 

She began to pull open all the doors and drawers on the front of the vanity. There was a drawer on the bottom of the vanity, it wasn’t as deep as the rest, but it was elongated, it seemed to almost run the width of   
the vanity. When Annalisa opened that drawer she must have found what she thought she was looking for. She pulled out a darkened manila envelope; it was one of those that were about 12 inches long, that you would store documents in, and it had a string that you wound up to close the flap on it. Moving carefully away from the vanity, Annalisa walked over to the bed. As she stood next to it, the scale became even clearer to Aaron; the top of the mattress came up to almost where Annalisa’s elbows would fall when her arms were at her sides, it’s safe to say she would have needed steps or a catapult to make it into the bed. 

Not even noticing Aaron at the door, still, she opened the envelope, dumping the contents out onto the bed. A lighter manila folder slid out, with some papers that stuck out of the edges; Alecta scooted the papers back in neatly. She came across a few loose papers, she glanced over them briefly before stacking them neatly and using a paper clip she found in the stash to help get them back in order. She set aside a thin box before turning her attention back to the manila folder that she had handled to begin with. 

Climbing up onto her parents old dusty bed, she began to leaf through the pages. Aaron decided to make his way farther into the room and let her know he was around.

When Annalisa heard the floor boards protest at Aaron’s footsteps she turned and saw him standing near the bed. She didn’t seem angry that he had intruded.

“It seems mama was holding out on me all of those years. She was doing her research as well. Look,look, she has left me with a dossier on possible targets, or at the very least a few good leads. These letters seem to be correspondences between herself and others like her, like us, discussing the Templar movements and any other event of note that would have proven important to them. There is something to do with Piazza San Marco….I am not sure what it is yet; everything is in the old language, I will have to comb through it later, under closer inspection if I am going to understand it much at all.” 

“What about the box?” 

Annalisa put the folder with the various papers down and picked up the silver framed box with the velvet lid. Opening it, she saw a beautiful silver rosary. 

“This was mama’s, she brought it with her from Italy. The cross is silver as well, with different gems in it. If you look closely through the gems you can see little etchings in the silver; they are the Stations of the   
Cross. She showed it to me once….the night they….the night they died. Before we left for dinner that night, I was sitting here on the bed, watching mama get ready, applying her lipstick carefully, making sure every hair was in place. Mama wasn’t a vain woman, but she liked to look nice when we went out. When I commented about how I couldn’t wait to be grown and have all of these grown up things, she pulled this out of the drawer and told me that when I was older she would give it to me…” Annalisa almost faltered, her voice getting shaky. ”She told me it had been in her family for such a long time. Seems like she might have thought it was time.” 

Annalisa carefully took the rosary out of the little box and placed it around her neck, running her fingers over the cross as it settled against her chest. 

“I have to finish packing. Dawn is getting closer.” 

“I can help…If you want me to.” 

“No thanks. It won’t take me long. I’m just gonna shove some clothes into my old suitcase. Nothing exciting there.” She smiled a bit at him and left to do what she had to do. 

Gospel truth of the matter, she didn’t want him to see some of the things she was going to pack. What would he think if he…..

“Ya know, I might be able to use your help after all.” There was only one way to find out what he thought of her secret life. It was easier to do it now as it was to wait for later. 

She was going to need help packing some of her weapons; daggers of all sorts mostly…throwing knives, she had shit-ton of those rolled up in the knife belt she was packing…..her ‘colleagues’ would take care of the heavy artillery, her swords included. Her suitcase had a false bottom to it, making it easier to hide some of these things from prying eyes; although she wouldn’t have to worry about security or customs at the airport….private airstrip……and the plane belonged to a friend of her ‘family’. 

“Annalisa?” 

‘Here we go…’ 

“Yes?”

“What exactly is it that we are going to be doing in Venice?”

“Why do you ask?”

“You have more blades here than a professional chef.”

“Well, I have mama’s list of targets…and an ax to grind. Venice is going to be my ground zero.”

“Targets? What are you into? Should I be worried?” 

“You wouldn’t believe me if I took the time to tell you. Should you be worried?” She paused. “Nah! We’ve got you guys covered.”

“I don’t feel comforted by that.” 

“Don’t worry my friend. You saved my life. I will guard yours….and your son’s. You have no worries with me.” 

After the weapons that she could fit into the false bottom were all packed, true to her word, Annalisa crammed a bunch of clothes into the remaining space of her suitcase. 

“Help me lock it?” She had to sit on the top of it while Hotch got the locks in their proper places. 

“We should try to get a couple hours of sleep. It won’t be much, but at least we can sleep on the plane for a while.”

“I am one of the kings of the cat-nap.” 

“Oh really? Care to demonstrate?” 

Hotch should have known better than to look into her eyes. The devilish gleam in them…she was going to be the death of him one way or the other. She kept stepping closer and closer. Hotch began backing away. 

“Are you afraid of me?” 

“No. Well, not exactly…No.”

“Oh.” Guessing that she was probably reading too much into things and that he didn’t really want…”it’s alright. I understand. Well look, you better go get some sleep. Your cat-nap will only last three hours at most.” 

She ushered him to the doorway of her room to see him out. 

As she was saying goodnight to him and closing the door, Hotch would swear he saw a dejected, isolated look in her eyes; he would swear later that they were almost watery, and he would swear on a stack of bibles that he had heard her sniffing slightly after she had closed her door and turned to go back to her bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is a translation of Annalisa's mother's letter from Italian to English. I had to use an online translator so I apologize if it isn't 100% accurate. 
> 
> “My daughter,
> 
> If you are reading this, odds are that your father and I are dead. We have done our best to make life for you safer. We left Italy when the Templars began closing in on us. You were actually born in Venice, like your father. But, when we made the move, we had friends that changed your paperwork, so that it appears as though you were born in America; we never told you differently….it was safer that way. 
> 
> I cannot tell you the reason that the Templars came after us or why they will eventually come after you. You will learn the reason eventually upon returning home, but to put it down here….if it was found by anyone but you….it would undermine everything we have been working for. 
> 
> My darling daughter, you don’t know what I would give to see you now…to see how you have grown, if you have children of your own….did you follow in your father’s footsteps into a world of academia? 
> 
> I have left you something in the notch in my vanity in our old bedroom. I know you likely haven’t been in there since whatever it was happened and took us away from you, but I am sure you will know the vanity I speak of. 
> 
> Whatever happens, know that we did what we thought we must, what we thought was safest and best….and know that wherever we are, wherever you are, that we love you…not even death can stop that…”


	12. Premonitions: Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some reminiscing as Annalisa and the others finish packing for the upcoming trip.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It may be some time before this one gets updated; at the time that I originally wrote this, Chapter 12 was the last chapter I had managed to get around to completing. I went through some depression and lost the ambition to do much of anything for a long time. Hopefully, I will be able to pick up where I left off before very long.

“I am one of the kings of the cat-nap.” 

“Oh really? Care to demonstrate?” 

Hotch should have known better than to look into her eyes. The devilish gleam in them…she was going to be the death of him one way or the other. She kept stepping closer and closer. Hotch began backing away. 

“Are you afraid of me?” 

“No. Well, not exactly…No.”

“Oh.” Guessing that she was probably reading too much into things and that he didn’t really want…”it’s alright. I understand. Well look, you better go get some sleep. Your cat-nap will only last three hours at most.”   
She ushered him to the doorway of her room to see him out. 

As she was saying goodnight to him and closing the door, Hotch would swear he saw a dejected, isolated look in her eyes; he would swear later that they were almost watery, and he would swear on a stack of bibles that he had heard her sniffing slightly after she had closed her door and turned to go back to her bed.   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~CM~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
It was as she said it would be. Dawn came about three hours later. Hotch had set the alarm on his watch to make sure he was up at least 45 minutes early. He wasn’t worried about getting himself ready, but Jack was still a young child, sometimes he was a bit difficult to wake up; and never mind the fact that Rossi could be a bear sometimes. 

Upon waking up, Hotch made his way to the bathroom and washed his face and tried to make some sense out of his rumpled clothes; he had no fresh clothes with him or he’d change altogether. Once he had straightened himself out a little he went to go wake his son up. Getting closer to the door, he could hear Jack speaking. He stood outside the door and listened as he heard Annalisa speaking back to him.

“This belonged to my father. I want you to have it Jack; for good luck.”

“Really!” Jack seemed to be really happy with whatever little trinket that Annalisa had just given him. 

Part of Hotch couldn’t believe that Jack was up and fully functioning at this hour, with no more sleep than the boy got, usually he was next to impossible to get up. He decided to go into the room and see what was   
going on. When he finally breeched the doorway, he saw that Annalisa had taken some food with her when she went. It was just a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and an apple, with some milk; but apparently she   
figured it might be easier to get the boy to wake up if she enticed him with at least a small breakfast. He had been munching on the sandwich when Annalisa had given him the gift. 

“Daddy, look it.” Jack seemed so pleased with the silver cross and chain that he had been given. It was of a far simpler design than the one that Annalisa found in the box in her parents room, or at least it appeared   
to be; there were no representations of the Stations of the Cross. Upon further inspection, Hotch could see that the quality of the carving that was done into the silver was no less stunning. It was a beautiful piece   
really; he couldn’t imagine what she was thinking giving it to a young boy. 

Apparently, reading his thoughts, Annalisa smiled up at him, ‘It’s just that I want him to hold onto it for a while. Or are you going to take that away from me, too?” 

Hotch squinted his eyes ever so slightly at her, not really glaring, not in front of his son. 

‘That was hitting below the belt,’ he thought to himself. Of course, Annalisa must have known what he was thinking; she all but smiled at him when she stood up from the edge of the bed that Jack had slept in. 

“Alright Jackie boy, eat your breakfast. I’m going to take you, your dad, and his work friends on a vacation with me. We will have to leave soon. And I want to make sure you have something on your little tummy.   
Then, your dad will help you get dressed and ready to go. OK?”

Jack nodded enthusiastically as he continued making the sandwich disappear. 

“Awesome. I’ll see you downstairs in a bit then.” After ruffling the boy’s hair, Annalisa brushed past Hotch without a second thought as if he was merely window dressing and made her way downstairs. All Hotch   
could do was shake his head almost in annoyance. Next, he turned his attention to getting his son together as Annalisa suggested. 

Almost directly across the hall in his own room, David Rossi was already awake, pulling himself together, getting his face washed, and trying to make some sense out of the rumpled mess that was his clothing. He   
so badly wished that Annalisa would allow them to at least go home to retrieve some fresh clothes. But, she had made it quite clear that it was entirely too dangerous at this time to do so. As he combed his hair into   
place and checked his reflection one last time, he could only wonder how she was managing to get his fellow teammates to cooperate with the current situation. Odds are she was using Hotch’s name to get things   
done. If the others thought that coming along was a direct order from their team leader they would never ignore the call. 

Perhaps an hour later, at the very most, the men that Annalisa had been waiting on arrived to escort her along with her new friends to the private air strip. They took several SUVs two of which had decoys riding in   
them on the off chance they would be followed.

“Decoys?” Rossi asked as they made their way to the vehicles. 

“Yes.” 

“What happens if they are actually needed? You know what happens to decoys then, don’t you?”

“When we are invited to join and we begin our training, we are made aware of the risks. All of us know that there is almost certain death whenever we retaliate. This is no different. The object is to be better than   
you opponent.” 

“So…”

“These people have no qualms about what they are doing. If you don’t believe me, ask them yourself.” With that Annalisa got herself into one of the SUVs as did everyone else on the premises. Twenty-five minutes   
later their group pulled up to the air-strip and saw that the others were awaiting their arrival. 

As Annalisa got out of the SUV and made her way to the private jet (which could easily have rivaled Air Force One) two men began walking along side of Annalisa giving her information about any chatter they may   
have heard, and she gave them orders based on that information….Or at least that is what all of that talk sounded like, since it was in Farsi, and few people among the BAU team were well versed in the language. 

Once the plane had been boarded, Annalisa turned around and greeted everyone. Her voice was still a bit weak from her earlier attack, but she made it work. 

“I hope that you will be quite comfortable on the flight. It’s a nice jet; a friend of mine loaned it to us and on such short notice as well. The staff can fix you something to eat, anything you like, whenever you   
like….just let them know. These seats over there,’ pointing in the direction she spoke of, ‘pull out sort of like a futon, so they will sleep a little more comfortably. The facilities are quite generous for a jet. I know   
how cramped airplane bathrooms can be….these are not like those. Just buckle up and try to relax.”

“Maybe we could do that if you told us what was going on.” Morgan stated rather flatly, trying not to release any emotion. 

“I will explain everything in due time. However, we are in a rush. Let’s at least get in the air comfortably before I bore you with that story.” 

Meanwhile, Reid had caught a glimpse of something by her wrist…he wouldn’t have noticed it probably if it had not been for the fact that her jacket sleeve had rode up her arm slightly. It was a small rendering of   
the ‘Shield of the Trinity’, he could recognize it immediately. 

Once Annalisa sat down, Reid made his way over to her; he had questions, and he was never shy about asking them. 

“Where did you get your shield?” 

“Dr. Reid, whatever are you talking about?” 

He took her wrist in his hand carefully and held it up, pulling the sleeve down slightly and just watched her face.

“Oh that. I’m not really sure. I have had it most of my life; as did my mother and father before me.” 

“Secret society then?” 

“If I told you it wouldn’t be a secret now would it darlin’?” Annalisa smiled sweetly at him before relocating her seat. Reid watched her make her way over to some of the men that had been waiting on everyone to   
board. They began talking in hushed tones, most likely about what the plans were for what would happen when they landed.

After her conversation with her men dispersed she turned to the BAU team and smiled, running her hands through her hair a bit before sitting among them.

“It seems as if you have a treat coming your way after all. When we land, my men are going to take us through Venice to my grandfather’s home. We will be able to stay there.”

“Won’t we cause a problem by being there?” Hotch spoke slowly not sure how much to give away.

“Nonsense. Nonno has plenty of room to spare. Besides, where do you think we get our….family traditions from?” Annalisa winked at Hotch and Rossi. “Nonnunccio is something else, trust me. Now, you are free to   
move about the cabin, read, sleep, whatever it is you choose to do, with the exception of exiting the plane. If you were smart, you would get some rest. We have several hours ahead of us. And, Venice is a lovely city   
with many things to see and experience. I don’t want you to wear yourselves out so quickly.” With that she made her way to a seat elsewhere in the cabin with every intention of taking a bit of a cat-nap herself. That   
was until Rossi ventured forward a question burning in his brain. 

“I wasn’t going to ask you this; I worried about my health and well-being. But, I need to ask you…”

“Yes, Agent Rossi? Out with it please; I just might be able to answer you before we land.”

“There was a picture in photo album. There were two figures standing in costume in the photo. On the back it had only one word. ‘Magic’. What was that about?”

“Did you recognize the setting?”

“It was Piazza San Marco. It looked like the photo was taken around sunset.”

“Well, then…if you are quite lucky, you will discover the meaning of the photograph for yourself. If you experience it for yourself, instead of me explaining it, it will stay with you for the rest of your life. Hearing my   
words will mean little. Now, if you will excuse me, I am quite tired, and it is a lengthy flight. There will be much to do when we arrive.” Although she was letting Rossi know that the discussion was over she still   
managed to offer him a polite smile as he turned to walk back to his seat.

Annalisa wasn’t really all that tired; in all reality she was too wound up to sleep. She hadn’t been to Venice in nearly 20 years. She hadn’t been there since she first met Didier; after Didier died she cut off almost   
everything that had to do with that life. The only remnants that seemed to be left was the occasional nightmare of her screams echoing through the streets of Paris the day those men attacked them. She lost   
everything that mattered that day. She never returned to Venice. She fled Paris as soon as she could after leaving the hospital with barely the clothes on her back…she couldn’t even be troubled to sell the flat that   
she shared with Didier. She turned her back on the cause….on what was left of her family and her life….and started a new life back in America where she had fallen in love with her work. Until now, it had been all   
there was to fill up her days. She became one of the top history professors in the world. She had an understanding of the material that escaped most. She loved the look on her students faces when they were finally   
able to grasp the importance of what she was trying to teach them. But she knew where she made her mistake. A boy in one of her classes; he had been asking too many questions. He seemed harmless enough at   
first. But then he asked her about a particular rare book shop in Paris. It had been her favorite place in the city. She had been there with Didier the day they were….the day he was killed. They were only returning   
home from spending hours there having coffee with the shop keeper and reading through some of his latest finds. None of her students could have known about it. They would have been too young to have   
known her then; besides, she never uttered a word about her life in Paris…or Venice for that matter. The boy had said, at the time, that he had come across a book of sorts that had a mark that identified it as being from that shop, and the book got him to wondering about the place and what it was like. The thing that should have made her blood turn to ice in her veins, if she had been paying close enough attention, was when he asked her if that hadn’t been her favorite book shop when she lived in Paris with her fiancée? But since she had left that life behind, and given up the cause….retired from it if you will….she thought nothing of it all. She brushed his question off quickly enough saying that she didn’t recall ever hearing of such a shop. Until after she had been taken, she had forgotten the conversation with that young man. 

But, in her years of solitude at the university, she had forgotten that the Templars were crafty bastards. They planted one of their younger, more insignificant members among her pupils. The fact that they bothered to get this close after all these years only meant that the Templars thought they were close to finding whatever it was they were looking for. To hunt her down when she had been out of the game all this time….they were either closer than she thought or they were desperate. Either way, it seemed as though she would be walking into a blasted hornet’s nest when they got back to Venice. 

Looking out of the window, Annalisa sighed quietly as she allowed herself to drift off to sleep. She was going to have to bury some old ghosts; she would need all the rest she could get in the meantime.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Shield of the Trinity is a Christian symbol of sorts. Even though this story delves into the whole Templar thing and the odd assassin, I didn’t want to totally rip off somebody’s idea. And the ‘treasure’ or whatever it is that both sides are fighting over is a little bit different this time around as well. I promise, I will try to not make this story so over the top in the Sci-fi/fantasy genre like one of my other ones….But I swear to you that I didn’t even intend for that one to happen the way it did….it took on a life of it’s own…..
> 
> And ‘nonnunccio’ is the Italian term of endearment that basically means= My little grandfather


End file.
